The gross telecom subscriber base of fixed and mobile services rose by 9 per cent to touch 70.53 million by the quarter ended December 2003 over the previous quarter, while mobile services grew by 23.5 per cent with a subscriber base of 28.44 million in the same period, according to the latest performance report from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

"The gross subscriber base of fixed and mobile services together reached 70.53 million by the end of the December quarter, from 64.77 million as on September 2003, showing an overall increase of around 8.90 per cent", Trai said in its latest quarterly performance indicators for telecom services.

While the fixed line subscriber growth showed a negligible growth from 41.38 million to 42.09 million, that for mobile services (cellular and WLL-mobile) rose to 28.44 million from 23.03 million, a growth of 23.49 per cent during the quarter.

The annual growth (December 2002-December 2003) for the mobile segment was a whopping 164 per cent while for fixed line, the growth was more than 39 per cent, Trai said.

The quarter indicates emergence of new mobile operators like BSNL and Reliance consolidating their positions with 4.93 million and 6.24 million subscribers, respectively. The share of PSU operators v/s private operators for mobile services increased to a ratio of 19:81, Trai said.

The Internet subscriber base showed an increase of around four per cent in the quarter with number of subscribers having increased to 4.14 million from 3.98 million as on September 2003.

The annual growth of this segment is more than 10 per cent.