Ironically the growth has also brought in less average revenues for the operators with tariffs touching low levels.

The all India blended ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) per month for GSM services has declined by 6.2 per cent from Rs 337 in the previous quarter to Rs 316 in the December quarter.

The satisfactory part is that quality of service performance of the basic and cellular has improved as compared to previous quarter in several parameters.

The wireless market grew at 15.5 per cent in the quarter ending December 2006 by adding 20.08 million subscribers.

The gross subscriber base of the wire-line and wireless services together reached 18.9 crore in the quarter ending December, 2006 from 17 crore (170.02 million) as on September 2006, showing an increase of 11.70 per cent, said the TRAI's quarterly performance indicator.

The overall growth for the year (December 2005 to December 2006) was 52.20 per cent. The tele-density in the quarter has reached 17.16 compared to 15.41 at the previous quarter and the subscriber base for wireless services has increased from 1.29 crore (129.54 million) to 1.49 crore (149.62 million) and that of fixed line service has decreased from 405 lakh (40.5 million) to 403 lakh (40.3 million), it said.

Internet subscribers base reached 85.47 lakhs (8.54 million) in the quarter by registering a growth of 5.9 per cent and broadband subscriber base reached 20.19 lakhs in the quarter by registering a growth of 11.12 per cent.