Reliance Infocomm led the tally of the basic subscribers with 58.8 lakh (5.88 million) till December 2003, while the all-India subscriber base rose to 81.13 lakh (8.113 million) in December from 75.63 lakh (7.563 million) in November last year.

According to latest figures released by Association of Basic Telecom Operators, Tata Teleservices occupied the second place with a subscriber base of 14.32 lakh (1.432 million) in its kitty and Sunil Mittal-owned Bharti Group finished 2003 with about 5.6 lakh (560,000) subscribers.

The subscriber base includes wireline, wireless in local loop (fixed) and mobile. Reliance is the only company which has not yet started wireline connections and thus has presence only in two segments of WLL (fixed) and mobile operations.

WLL mobile operations of all the basic operators have now been converted into fully mobile services and ABTO has termed the services as 'digital mobile.'

Shyam Telelink offering services only in the region of Rajasthan has a subscriber base of 1.17 lakh (117,000) at the end of December 2003 and HFCL ended the year with a base of over 1.33 lakh (133,000), ABTO said.