The number of telephone subscribers in India surged to 189.93 million in December 2006, taking the country's tele-density to 17.16 per cent.
The telecom user base further expanded with the net addition of 63 lakh subscribers in May, taking the total number of telephone connections to 21.8 crore on a tele-density of 19.25 per cent.
Public and private sector GSM operators in the country have demanded an additional 13.2 MHz of spectrum
Anil Ambani is eyeing the fast-growing GSM-based service with massive expansion plans in eight circles at an estimated investment of Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion).
India is all set to overtake Russia as the country with the third highest mobile phone subscribers across the globe by early 2007 -- behind only China and US.
Following Reliance Communications' move to break the sub-Rs 1,000 price barrier in the black and white CDMA sets, mobile phone manufacturers are working hard to break the sub-Rs 2,000 barrier for GSM colour mobile phones.
Nokia and Reliance Communications have joined hands to market the Nokia 1255 mobile handset that costs just Rs 1,999. \n
The British High Commission has announced this service for Indians travelling to the United Kingdom.
Sources in the industry said Tata Teleservices had made an attempt to sale one-third stake to South Korean Telecom. But the deal did not materialise because of differences over valuation.
Leading white goods manufacturer, LG Electronics would invest nearly Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) this year in India towards expansion of its existing manufacturing facilities.
Punjab-based telecom operator HFCL on Wednesday became the first service provider to offer uniform call rates across all telecom networks and announced that all calls from its service Connect would be local calls.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will introduce SIM-based prepaid CDMA WLL service from August 1 that will further bring down the local call rate to 75 paise a minute.
The average monthly revenue per subscriber has declined to Rs 374 for the quarter ended September 2005 for GSM mobile operators while for the CDMA operators the figure is even lower at Rs 244.
CDMA mobile operator Reliance Communication on Wednesday reduced international calling rates upto 66 per cent for consumers using global calling cards of different denominations.
GSM mobile telephony operators have resisted any move to levy entry charge for 3G spectrum from existing operators, even as they opposed allocation of additional spectrum to CDMA-based mobile service providers.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday recommended lowering spectrum charges paid by service providers to the government to 4% from 6% -- a move which may further bring down telecom tariffs.
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