The number of telephone subscribers in India surged to 189.93 million in December 2006, taking the country’s teledensity to 17.16 percent.
Wireless subscribers were the major contributors to the growth, with their total numbers standing at 149.50 million.
In all, 65 million telephony subscribers, including wireline and wireless, were added in 2006 which pushed the tele-density up by 50 percent from 11.43 percent in December 2005.
Of the 149.50 million wireless subscriber (GSM, CDMA and WLL-F) additions so far, 6.48 million users were added in December 2006 alone.
However, there was negative growth in the number of wireline subscribers at 0.08 million in December 2006 resulting in net addition of 6.40 million subscribers, as compared to 6.75 million during December 2006. The wireline subscriber base reached 40.43 million at the end of December 2006.
Source: The Telegraph
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