Telephone subscribers in the country is expected to reach 300-400 million by 2010 from 100 million currently, Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and MD, Bharti Airtel said.
"As far as the number of subscribers are concerned, we have reached 100 million mark in 2006 and if this pace is maintained then by 2010 we could reach 300-400 million and if we go aggressively then reaching 500 million mark would not be a long dream," Mittal said after receiving the 'Telecom Man of the Year 2006' award by communications magazine Voice and Data.
Despite the availability of telecom services at an affordable price, about half of the population, especially in rural areas is out of its ambit, he said.
He said, the companies should now address this challenge and provide basic telephonic services in the rural areas.
"Our company has clocked about 10 billion minutes of usage per month and our target is to take this figure to 25 billion minutes," Mittal said.
About 27 top telecom companies were also felicitated with "Voice and Data100 Awards" for excellence in business performance in FY 2005-06 on Thursday.
LG CDMA bagged the top company award in fixed wireless phone and CDMA handset category, BSNL received the award for best service provider (overall), in fixed line services, internet and broadband and as top NLD operator, Nokia got the award in best equipment vendor, wireless infrastructure and mobile handsets category.
VSNL got the award for best ILD operator, Bharti Airtel as top mobile operator and Wipro as top telecom software company.
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