Telecommunications Statistics in India - Telephone Statistics

Telephone Statistics

• Telephone subscribers (wireless and landline): 995.9 million (May 2012)
• Land lines: 31.53 million (May 2012)
• Cell phones: 929.37 million (May 2012)
• Monthly cell phone addition: 8.35 million (May 2012)
• Teledensity: 79.28% (May 2012)
• Annual cell phone addition: 227.27 million (March 2010 - 2011)
• Projected teledensity: 1.159 billion, 97% of population by 2013.

• Telephone system: The telecommunications system in India is the 2nd largest in the world. The country is divided into several 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 Airtel, 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 telephone network has aggrandized greatly since 2000. The number of mobile phone connections crossed fixed-line connections in Sept 2004 and currently there are an estimated 929.37 million mobile phone users in India compared to 31.53 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 Aircel, Vodafone, Airtel, Tata Indicom, Tata Teleservices, MTS, Uninor, Reliance Infocomm, 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.

• 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.
• Visitor Location Register(VLR):

Out of the total 929.37 million mobile subscribers, 689.33 Million subscribers were active subscribers in VLR on the last working day of the month i.e., May 31, 2012. The total active VLR number excludes the CDMA VLR figure of BSNL, as the service provider has not provided the VLR figures corresponding to their total CDMA subscriber base of 3.59 million. The proportion of VLR subscribers is 74.17% of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers.

• Internet users: Number of Internet users in India is the 3rd largest in the world next only to China and the United States of America. Though the number of internet users is high, internet penetration is still much lower than most countries across the globe. It must also be noted that 40% of all internet users in India are connected to the net only via their mobile phones.

• Broadband subscribers: Broadband in India is defined as 512kbit/s and above by the government regulator. Total subscribers were 14.31 million (May 2012).

• Internet service providers (ISPs) & hosts: 86,571 (2004) source: CIA World Fact Book

• Country code (Top-level domain): IN