India's fixed line subscriber base, including WLL (fixed) services, crossed the 42 million mark in January 2004, while mobiles exceeded 30 million users taking the total subscriber base to 72 million, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The subscriber base for mobile services continued to maintain its growth during the first month of 2004.

During the month, about 1.64 million mobile subscribers were added bringing the total in the category to 30 million, a TRAI release said in New Delhi.

"During the month, 1.37 million cellular and 0.27 million WLL (mobile) subscribers have been added raising the total number of cellular subscribers to 23.37 million and that for WLL (m) subscribers to 6.71 million.

During January, 2004 addition of mobiles was more than twice the growth during the corresponding month last year and additions during the first 10 months of 2002-03 were more than 3.5 times the growth during corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Meanwhile the authority today decided to extend the date for submission of written comment on its consultation paper on mobile phone theft to February 23 from January 31 scheduled earlier.

"Representations from some stakeholders have been received requesting an extension of the date for receiving comments on his consultation paper," TRAI said.