Haryana, Bihar lead in GSM tele-density growth

New Delhi, Dec 15 (ANI): The country's tele-density continues to show an upward trend with GSM contributing the most.

According to the latest data released, the overall tele-density improved further to 16.28 percent in November 2006, up from 10.87 percent in November 2005.The growth has been entirely in the wireless segment with the GSM alone contributing 5.04 million connections in November 2006. Meanwhle, CDMA contributed 1.78 million new connections in that period.

Among the states, Haryana and Bihar have contributed the maximum new GSM connections. While, Haryana telecom circle recorded the highest growth rate registering 9.62 pc, Bihar telecom circle registered 8.46 pc growths.

In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of 4 pc with a net addition of 1.78 million subscribers. Maharashtra telecom circle contributed the maximum to this addition. Andhra Pradesh alone added more than 6 lakh subscribers during the month.

In the last November alone, there was a net addition of 6.75 million phones - an average daily addition of more than 2.2 lakh lines that has resulted in the total number of telephones in the country growing to 183.45 million, as against a total of 176.7 million as on October 31, 2006.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of October 2006, about 1.86 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached to 593 cities. Under Bharat Nirman Programme, of the 66,822 villages remaining to be covered on November 2004, a total of 36014 Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided.

The remaining 30808 villages are expected to be covered by next year November. (ANI)