India becomes second largest wireless network with 340 million connections

The Indian telecom sector has made remarkable growth in the recent past. India has become the second largest wireless network in the world after China with over 340 million mobile connections, surpassing USA. The tele-density of the country has increased from 18% in 2006 to 32% in November 2008, showing a stupendous annual growth of about 50%, one of the highest in any sector of the Indian Economy. In absolute terms about 8-10 million subscribers are added every month now in comparison to 6-8 million two years back. This is an increase of about 30% in the growth rate. In the last eighteen months alone, the country has added about 150 million subscribers. As a result of number of steps taken, rural tele-density has almost doubled from 6% to 12% during the last eighteen months. The pace of expansion is likely to be much more in the near future as new operators start rolling their networks.

Under "Bharat Nirman" programme the target of providing telephone connectivity to all uncovered villages having more than 100 populations was set and connectivity has already provided to more than 90% of villages.

Keeping in view the motto of providing connectivity in rural and remote areas of the country, in addition of Mobile telephony, the broadband services have also been brought into the ambit of Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. Last year, USO Fund has provided assistance for setting up about 7,000 mobile towers in rural and remote areas of the country, which would extend mobile coverage to about 2 lakh uncovered villages. Further, support for an additional 11,000 towers will be provided in the next few months under USOF to enlarge the mobile footprint to reach the remaining rural population.

This will get a fillip with the setting up of 100,000 Common Service Centers (CSCs) covering all the villages in the country. They will provide internet access and the benefit of e-governance to the common citizens.

Another major decision taken a few months back is allowing infrastructure sharing among operators. Since each tower can accommodate radio equipments of up to three operators, sharing will reduce the CAPEX of the operators substantially, paving way for further reduction of tariff.

To give boost to land line connectivity, license fee from the landlines has been exempted, to begin with, for rural areas. Decision of extending it to urban areas will be taken in due course of time after evaluating the impact on rural lines.

To give fillip to indigenous technologies, the Government has taken a unique initiative of setting up of "Telecom Centers of Excellence" in India's most prestigious academic institutes at IITs, IIM Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore in Public Private Partnership mode to embolden the R&D efforts. This is expected to generate low cost technologies for faster spread of communication and broadband facilities.

Source : Press Information Bureau

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