Telecommunications Statistics in India

Telecommunications Statistics in India

India is having one of the fastest growing telecom networks in the world with its high population and development potential. Reliance, Bharti Telecom, Tata Indicom, Hutch(vodafone), MTNL, and BPL are other major operators in India. However, rural India still lacks strong infrastructure. India's public sector telecom company BSNL is the 7th largest telecom company in world.

Telephony introduced in India in1882. Today the total number of telephones in the country crossed the 100 million mark in April 2005 and the total numbers of telephone subscribers have reached 218.05 million at the end of May 2007 as compared to 211.76 million in April 2007. The overall tele-density has increased to 19.26 in May 2007 as compared to 18.74 in April 2007. In the wireless segment, 6.57 million subscribers have been added in May 2007 while 6.11 million subscribers were added in April 2007. The total wireless (GSM, CDMA & WLL (F)) subscribers’ base is 177.79 million now. The wire line segment subscriber base stood at 40.26 million with a decline of 0.28 million in May 2007.

Telephone Statistics

Telephony Subscribers (Wireless and Landline): 290.11 million (Feb 2008)

Land Lines: 39.18 million

Cell phones: 250.93 million (Feb 2008)

Yearly Cell phone Addition: 72 million (2007)

Monthly Cell phone Addition: 8.49 million (Feb 2008)

Teledensity: 25.31% (Feb 2008)

Projected Teledensity: 500 million, 40% of population by 2010.

Telephone System: The telecommunications system in India is the 4th largest in the world. The country is divided into multiple zones, called circles (roughly along state boundaries). Government and several private operators run local and long distance telephone services. It was thrown open to private operators in the 1990s. Competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are one of the cheapest in the world. The rates are supposed to go down further with new measures to be taken by the Information Ministry.

Landlines: In India landline service is firstly run by BSNL/MTNL and after there are several other private players too, such as Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices and Touchtel. Landlines are facing stiff competition from mobile telephones. The competition has forced the landline services to become more efficient. The landline network quality has improved and landline connections are now usually available on demand, even in high density urban areas.

Mobile Cellular: The mobile service has start growth since 2000. The number of mobile phone connections has crossed fixed-line connections in Sept 2004. Currently there are an estimated 159.12 million mobile phone users in India compared to 40.43 million fixed line subscribers. India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band. Recent operators also operate in the 1800 MHz band. The dominant players are Airtel, Reliance Infocomm, Hutch, Idea cellular and BSNL/MTNL. There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers.

Dialing System: On landlines system, intra circle calls are considered local calls while inter circle are considered long distance calls. Government is now working to integrate the whole country in one telecom circle. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g. for Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX). For international calls, you would dial "00" or “+” and the country code+area code+number. The country code for India is 91.llll

Call Rates Cutting Blows: The rates of Communication in India were one of the highest in the world, till a few years back. The rates could not be justified by the fact that rupee is cheaper. In fact the Indian sub continent had shown a calm tolerance towards the high rate in even in telecom. The rates were also justified as the government has to feel the high cost involved in the one-time developments like satellite and telephone tower related charges. But now owing to better technologies the telecom rates in India are on the verge of becoming cheaper. The time may not be far when India will have the cheapest communication. One of the enabling technologies behind this is the brain child of an able Indian engineer Sandipan Bhattacharjee. He co-worked with a famous MNC to redefine the way telephones interact. A, computer engineer by profession, he extended wave-overlap theory to reach this goal. The technology is now patented and details are not available. It is heard that he has dedicated his work to "Someone who is Unknown & Unforgettable". There is a conversion process underway to make all numbers in India 10 digits long.

Internet Users: Number of Internet users in India is the 4th largest in the world. Internet population is expected to grow to 100 million users by 2007

Though the number of internet is high, the penetration level is still lower than most countries across the globe.

Broadband Subscribers: Broadband in India is defined as 256kbit/s and above by the government regulator. Total subscribers were 3.47 million (Feb 2008) Source: TRAI

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & Hosts: 86,571 (2004) Source: CIA World Fact Book

Country code (Top-level domain): IN

Broadcasting Statistics in India

Radios: 116 million (1997)

Radio broadcast stations: 153- AM (Amplitude Modulation), 91- FM (Frequency Modulation), 68 (1998) - Shortwave

Televisions: 110 million (2006)

In India, only the government owned Doordarshan (Door = Distant = Tele, Darshan = Vision) is allowed to broadcast terrestrial television signals. It initially had one major National channel (also known as DD1) and a Metro channel in some of the larger cities (also known as DD2). Satellite/Cable television took off during the first Gulf War with CNN. There are no regulations against ownership of satellite dish antennas, or operation of cable television systems, which led to an explosion of viewer ship and channels, led by the Star TV group and Zee TV.

Initially restricted to music and entertainment channels, viewer ship grew, giving rise to several channels in regional languages and many in the national language, Hindi. The main news channels available were CNN and BBC World. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan. Some of the notable ones are Aaj Tak that means Till Today, owned by the India Today group and Star News, initially run by the NDTV group and their charismatic lead anchor, Prannoy Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7, NDTV Profit and NDTV India). Also Sahara (like Sahara Rastriya & some regional channel), India TV & IBN 7(the TV 18 group) are some most popular channel.

Television terrestrial broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82 stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1 kW of power) (1997).