Indian telephone subscriber base falls by 1 million after brief growth

Telephone subscription numbers in the country are falling just when they had begun showing signs of growth, reveals a report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The report, titled “Highlights on Telecom Subscription Data as on 30th April 2013”, reveals a drop in the number of telephone subscribers in the country to the tune of 1million subscribers: the number of subscribers fell to 897.02 million in April from 898.02 million in March.

MNP continues to soar! (Image credit: Getty Images)

The wireless segment fared no better—the total wireless subscriber base in the country fell from 867.80 million in March 2013 to 867.02 million in April 2013. TRAI attributes this drop largely to disconnections by a few service providers.

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However, the number of broadband subscriptions grew by a bit: April saw 15.09 million broadband subscriptions, up from 15.05 million at the end of March 2013. At the end of the review period, there were 162 ISPs offering broadband services in the country, and BSNL, Bharti Airtel, MTNL, Hathway, and You Broadband were the top ISPs in the country in terms of market share. 

The Mobile Number Portability scheme has been availed of by a growing number of users. By the end of the month, roughly 91.73 million subscribers submitted their number porting requests to different service providers. In MNP Zone-I (Northern & Western India), a majority of the requests came from Rajasthan (8.80 million), followed by Gujarat (7.85 million). In Zone-II (Southern & Eastern) the maximum number of requests came from Karnataka (10.90 million), followed by Andhra Pradesh (8.30 million).