New Delhi, March 4
There is no stopping the growth of mobile telephony in the country. According to figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), over 18 million (1.8 crore) mobile subscribers were added to the country’s mobile network.

TRAI added that the wireless user base grew 2.52 per cent to 771.18 million (77.12 crore) in January from 752.19 million (75. 21 crore) in the previous month.

As has been predicted by experts in the past and has also been stressed upon by the telecom operators, the figures show saturated metro cities and Tier-A markets. Rural and Tier-B towns took the lead in the addition of mobile phone users.

The TRAI report added that the share of urban subscribers in the total number of subscribers declined to 66.42 per cent from 66.65 per cent in the month. However, the share of rural subscribers increased from 33.35 percent to 33.58.

The total number of telephone subscribers have now touched 806.13 million, registering 2.39 per cent growth with overall tele-density in the country at 67.67 per cent.

There was again a decline in the wire-line segment. It declined marginally from 35.09 million in December to 34.94 million at the end of January.

The broadband subscriber base grew 2.70 per cent from 10.92 million in December to 11.21 million in January 2010.

TRAI also released additional information this time, according to which of the 771.18 million subscribers, only 548.66 million subscribers were active subscribers on the date of peak visitor location register (VLR).

VLR is a temporary database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area, which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR, hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

Bharti Airtel led the growth in January with the addition of 3.3 million users. Bharti’s now has 155.8 million users.

Reliance Communications followed next with an addition of added 3.2 million new subscribers, taking its subscriber base to 128.87 million. Vodafone added 3.1 million connections, taking its user base to 127.36 million subscribers. Newer operators, however, showed a dismal performance with a dip in subscriber figures.

Videocon posted a decline of 6.89 per cent, with over one million customers moving out of its network, leaving it with six million customers.

Loop telecom added a meagre 17,541 subscribers.

VOICE OVER
The total number of telephone subscribers have now touched 806.13 million (80.6 crore)

Over 18 million (1.8 crore) subscribers joined the mobile network in January

Rural and Tier-B towns took the lead in the addition of mobile phone users

Performance of new operators dismal