75.14 million MNP requests by end of October 2012: TRAI

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently shared figures of its Telecom Subscription Data as on October 31, 2012. TRAI shared that the number of telephone subscribers in India fell to 935.18 million at the end of October 2012 from 937.70 million at the end of September 2012 – registering a monthly growth rate of -0.27 percent. Figures revealed that the share of urban subscribers declined to 63.17 percent from 63.53 percent, while the share of rural subscribers increased to 36.83 percent in the month of October 2012. The report went on to share that private operators in the country accounted for 88.36 percent of the wireless market share (based on subscriber base), while BSNL and MNTL held 11.64 percent of share in the market. 

75.14 million MNP requests by end of October 2012 (Image credit: Getty Images)

Moving over to Mobile Number Portability (MNP), the report highlighted that according to the data provided by service providers, roughly 75.14 million subscribers went in for MNP by the end of October 2012. In MNP Zone-I (Northern & Western India), maximum number of requests were received in Rajasthan (7.15 million), followed by Maharashtra (6.51 million). In MNP Zone-II (Southern & Eastern), most requests were received in Karnataka (9.37 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh Service area (7.02 million). In the month of September 2012, total number of subscribers who submitted their request for MNP stood at 5.36 million.

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TRAI further shares that the total wireless subscriber base in the country fell from 906.62 million in September 2012 to 904.23 million at the end of October 2012 – thereby registering a monthly growth of -0.26 percent. The report attributed the fall to large scale disconnection by some service providers. 

As for Broadband, the report states that the total subscriber base rose to 14.81 million at the end of October 2012, from 14.68 million at the end of September 2012. It registered a monthly growth of 0.89 percent. The yearly growth in broadband subscribers reached 14.10 percent in the past one year (October 2011 to October 2012). As per figures shared in the report, as on October 31, 2012, there are 157 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that are providing broadband services in the country. Out of this, only 113 ISPs have provided data for the month of October 2012; for the rest of the ISPs, data from previous month has been retained (Data from the top 10 ISPs, which constitute 92.6% of the total subscriber base, has been received for the month of October 2012). The top five ISPs in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are: BSNL (9.69 million), Bharti Airtel (1.39 million), MTNL (1.08 million), Hathway (0.37 million) and Tikona (0.30 million).