'Broadband For All', Say Telecom Companies!

The FICCI-KPMG report ‘Broadband For All’ points out that the broadband sector is expected to log tremendous growth in the future as over 650 million potential customers are waiting to be tapped. Rural India, the report states, is the key target market likely to drive the next round of growth for telcos, particularly for voice-based services.

India is ranked amongst the fastest growing telecommunications markets across the globe. The average monthly mobile subscriber growth over the past year has been 15-17 million customers. Currently, the mobile subscriber base is over 700 million. The overall tele-density for India has already surpassed 60 per cent and the market continues to exhibit unabated growth. In comparison to the mobile growth, the broadband penetration across India has been rather under-tapped with approximately 10.08 million subscribers. The contention ratio (number of subscribers accommodated in a given bandwidth) in India is high i.e. service providers provision an average 130 subscribers in 52 kbps bandwidth, whereas internationally the same ratio is not more than 50.

“The present phase is extremely exciting for the telecommunication industry which is looking forward to 3G and BWA rollout to help re-invigorate the aggressive growth that the industry has witnessed in the past two years. Rapid swelling in the subscriber numbers has resulted in urban teledensity exceeding 100 per cent. The rural market is expected to drive the next round of growth for the voice-based services, while data services will create the much needed churn within the maturing urban markets,” said Dr. Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI.

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“Improving broadband penetration in the country has emerged as the need of the hour. Strong government support coupled with key initiatives from the private operators will help ensure connectivity for the remotest parts of the country and will further the government’s agenda of providing basic healthcare, banking and e-governance facilities to all,” said Romal Shetty, Head, Telecom, KPMG India.