Trai releases data on internet usage: subscription has grown 9.72 percent over previous year

Trai has released a quarterly report on the usage of internet in India. There are details provided on number of subscribers, state-wise breakdown of subscribers, technologies used, and Internet service providers. The total number of users has increased to 350.48 million at the end of June 2016, as compared to 342.65 million users at the end of the previous quarter ending on March 2016. There were 319.42 Internet users at the end of June 2016, which shows a 9.72 percent increase in Internet usage over the past year and 2.28 percent over the quarter. Broadband subscription rates have surged, showing a growth of  8.22 percent over the previous quarter. Narrowband internet subscribers have declined by 2.32 percent as compared to the previous quarter.    Of the 350.48 million internet users, 162.06 million are broadband subscribers and 188.42 million are narrowband subscribers. Only 0.16 percent of users have a fixed wireless connection. Only five hundred thousand users across the country have a fixed wireless broadband connection, which includes Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Radio and VSAT. 28,000 users across the country have a fixed wireless narrowband connection. A mobile wireless connection is how the majority of people in India subscribe to a broadband connection.  Trai has released region wise data on broadband and narrowband subscription, with details on rural and urban subscribers. The areas designated in the data mostly correspond with the states. The subscribers for Mumbai and Kolkata are mentioned separately, and Uttar Pradesh has been split into east and west. All the North Easter states except Assam are grouped together. There is no granular information available for the North Eastern states. The most connected broadband service areas are Tamil Nadu with 15.35 million subscribers, Maharashtra with 15.13 million, Delhi with 13.02 million, Karnataka with 12.92 million and Andhra Pradesh with 12.11 million. Himachal Pradesh lags behind in terms of connectivity. Click on the image for a bigger version.  There are over 125 ISPs registered with a license in India, out of which the to 10 ISPs serve a whopping 98.46 percent of the population. Bharti provides internet access to more than a quarter of the connected population of India, with a market share of 26.40 percent. Vodafone comes in second with a 19.89 percent market share. The top providers mainly serve internet access through wireless mobile connections.  In terms of numbers, you can practically see the subscriber base tapering off even among the top ten service providers. All the other service providers, not among the top ten, together provide access to only 5,384,547 customers across India.  State run BSNL dominates the market share when it comes to wired internet connections. BSNL owns 62.96 percent of the market, with 13.07 million subscribers. Bharti comes in second. It is one of the few companies to feature towards the top of both wireless and wired market shares. Atria Convergence Technologies and You Broadband do not feature at all in the top ten ISPs, despite being dominant players in the wired broadband market. There were a total of 20.76 million wired broadband subscribers across the country at the end of June 2016.  In wireless connections, Bharti is on top and holds 27.48 percent of the market with 90.61 million customers. Vodafone comes in second and holds 21.15 percent of the market with a subscriber base of 69.72 million. State run service providers BSNL and MTNL do not feature as the top players in the wireless broadband market.  There is data on the technology trends used to deliver connectivity as well. GPRS/EDGE is the most common way in which wireless connectivity is delivered, with 181.74 million subscribers. HSPA/WCDMA is the next most common with 131.51 million subscribers. As mentioned before, Wi-Fi not at all common. Mobile device users with either a dongle or a mobile phone account for 88.98 percent of broadband subscribers in India. DSL is the technology of choice for delivering wired broadband services, followed by dial-up. Only 2,80,000 subscribers in India have access to a high-speed fibre optic connection.  The international Internet bandwidth available with all providers in total was 2099 Gbps, as compared to 2070 Gbps available in the previous quarter. The Trai report is titled The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report April - June 2016 and can be found here. According to the Akamai State of the Internet report, the number of IPv6 connections grew by a whopping 715 percent over the third quarter of 2016. The average internet speed in India is 4.1 Mbps Now. That is a 14 percent improvement over the previous quarter, and a 62 percent improvement as compared to the previous year.