Introduction

India has the fastest growing telecom network in the world with its high population and development potential. Airtel , Idea, Reliance

Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications Ltd. is an Indian broadband and telecommunications company headquartered in Navi Mumbai, India. RCOM is the world's 16th largest mobile phone operator with over 144 million subscribers. Established on 2004, a subsidiary of the Reliance Group...

, BSNL, Aircel,Tata Indicom, Vodafone, MTNL, and Loop Mobile are other major operators in India. However, rural India still lacks strong infrastructure. India's public sector telecom company BSNL is the 7th largest telecom company in world.

Telephony introduced in India in 1882. The total number of telephone subscribers in the country waThe total number of telephones in the country stands at 885.99 million, while the overall tele-density has increased to 73.97% as of June 30, 2011. and the total numbers of mobile phone subscribers have reached 851.70 million as of June 2011. The mobile tele-density has increased to 71.11 % in June 2011. In the wireless segment, 11.41 million subscribers were added in June 2011. The wire line segment subscriber base stood at 34.29 million <.

Indian telecom operators added a staggering 227.27 million wireless subscribers in the 12 months between Mar 2010 and Mar 2011 averaging at 18.94 million subscribers every month. To put this into perspective, China which currently possesses the world's largest telecommunications network added 119.2 million wireless subscribers during the same period (March 2010 - March 2011) - averaging 9.93 million subscribers every month (a little over half the number India was adding every month). So, while India might currently be second to China in the TOTAL number of mobile subscribers, India has been adding nearly twice as many subscribers EVERY month. Mobile teledensity increased by almost 18.4 percentage points from Mar 2010 and Mar 2011 (49.60% to 67.98%) while wireline subcriber numbers fell by a modest 2.2 million. This frenetic pace of monthly subscriber additions means that the Indian mobile subscriber base has shown a year on year growth of 43.23%.
According to recent reports, India was purported to overtake China to become the world's largest mobile telecommunications market by the year 2013. It was also predicted that by 2013, the teledensity will shoot up to 75% and the total mobile subscriber base would be a colossal 1.159 billion.

Monthly Mobile Subscriber Additions

The following table illustrates the gradual increase in monthly mobile subscriber additions(in millions) in India since January 2002.

Year	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	Annual Additions(in millions)	Average Monthly Additions(in millions)
2002	0.28	0.35	0.41	0.28	0.29	0.35	0.36	0.49	0.37	0.53	0.72	0.8	5.23	0.44
2003	0.64	0.6	0.96	0.64	2.26	1.42	2.31	1.79	1.61	1.67	1.9	1.69	17.49	1.46
2004	1.58	1.6	1.91	1.37	1.33	1.43	1.74	1.67	1.84	1.51	1.56	1.95	19.49	1.62
2005	1.76	1.67	0.73	1.46	1.72	1.98	2.45	2.74	2.48	2.9	3.51	4.46	27.86	2.32
2006	4.69	4.28	5.03	3.88	4.25	4.78	5.28	5.9	6.07	6.71	6.79	6.48	64.14	5.35
2007	6.81	6.21	3.53	6.11	6.57	7.34	8.06	8.31	7.79	8.05	8.32	8.17	85.27	7.11
2008	8.77	8.53	10.16	8.21	8.62	8.94	9.22	9.16	10.07	10.42	10.35	10.81	113.26	9.44
2009	15.41	13.82	15.64	11.90	11.58	12.04	14.38	15.08	14.98	16.67	17.65	19.10	178.25	14.85
2010	19.90	18.76	20.59	16.9	16.31	17.98	16.92	18.18	17.1	18.98	22.88	22.62	227.12	18.93
2011	18.99	20.20	20.21	15.34	13.35	11.41	6.67	7.34

Telephone statistics

• Telephone Subscribers (Wireless and Landline): 885.99 million (June 2011)
• Land Lines: 34.29 million (June 2011)
• Cell phones: 851.70 million (June. 2011)
• Monthly Cell phone Addition: 11.41 million (June 2011)
• Teledensity: 73.97 % (June 2011)
• Annual Cell phone Addition: 227.27 million (Mar 2010 - 2011)
• Projected Teledensity: 1.159 billion, 75% of population by 2013.

• Telephone System: The telecommunications system in India is the 2nd largest in the world. The country is divided into several zones, called circles (roughly along state boundaries). Government and several private operators run local and long distance telephone services. It was thrown open to private operators in the 1990s. Competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are one of the cheapest in the world. The rates are supposed to go down further with new measures to be taken by the Information Ministry.

• Landlines: In India landline service is firstly run by BSNL/MTNL and after there are several other private players too, such as Airtel, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices and Touchtel. Landlines are facing stiff competition from mobile telephones. The competition has forced the landline services to become more efficient. The landline network quality has improved and landline connections are now usually available on demand, even in high density urban areas.

• Mobile Cellular: The mobile telephone network has aggrandized greatly since 2000. The number of mobile phone connections crossed fixed-line connections in Sept 2004 and currently there are an estimated 851.70 million mobile phone users in India compared to 34.29 million fixed line subscribers. India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band. Recent operators also operate in the 1800 MHz band. The dominant players are Aircel, Vodafone, Airtel, Tata Indicom, Tata Teleservices, MTS, Uninor, Reliance Infocomm, Idea Cellular and BSNL/MTNL. There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers.

• Dialing System: On landlines system, intra circle calls are considered local calls while inter circle are considered long distance calls. Government is now working to integrate the whole country in one telecom circle. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g. for Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX). For international calls, you would dial "00" or “+” and the country code+area code+number. The country code for India is 91.

• Call Rates Cutting Blows: The rates of Communication in India were one of the highest in the world, till a few years back. The rates could not be justified by the fact that rupee is cheaper. In fact the Indian sub continent had shown a calm tolerance towards the high rate in even in telecom. The rates were also justified as the government has to feel the high cost involved in the one-time developments like satellite and telephone tower related charges. But now owing to better technologies the telecom rates in India are on the verge of becoming cheaper.
• Visitor Location Register(VLR):

Out of the total 851.70 Million mobile subscribers, 594.77 Million subscribers were active subscribers in VLR on the last working day of the month i.e., 30 June 2011. The total active VLR number excludes the CDMA VLR figure of BSNL, as the service provider has not provided the VLR figures corresponding to their total CDMA subscriber base of 5.47 million. The proportion of VLR subscribers is 71.14 % of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers.

• Internet Users: Number of Internet users in India is the 3rd largest in the world next only to China and the United States of America. Though the number of internet users is high, internet penetration is still much lower than most countries across the globe. It must also be noted that 40% of all internet users in India are connected to the net only via their mobile phones.

• Broadband Subscribers: Broadband in India is defined as 256kbit/s and above by the government regulator. Total subscribers were 12.01 million (Apr 2011).

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & Hosts: 86,571 (2004) Source: CIA World Fact Book

• Country code (Top-level domain): IN

Broadcasting Statistics in India

• Radios: 116 million (1997)

Radio broadcast stations: 153- AM (Amplitude Modulation), 91- FM (Frequency Modulation), 68 (1998) - Shortwave

• Televisions: 110 million (2006)

In India, only the government owned Doordarshan (Door = Distant = Tele, Darshan Vision) is allowed to broadcast terrestrial television signals. It initially had one major National channel (also known as DD1) and a Metro channel in some of the larger cities (also known as DD2). Satellite/Cable television took off during the first Gulf War with CNN. There are no regulations against ownership of satellite dish antennas, or operation of cable television systems, which led to an explosion of viewer ship and channels, led by the Star TV group and Zee TV.

Initially restricted to music and entertainment channels, viewer ship grew, giving rise to several channels in regional languages and many in the national language, Hindi. The main news channels available were CNN and BBC World. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan. Some of the notable ones are Aaj Tak that means Till Today, owned by the India Today group and Star News, initially run by the NDTV group and their charismatic lead anchor, Prannoy Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7, NDTV Profit and NDTV India). Also Sahara (like Sahara Rastriya & some regional channel),Sun network,E nadu India TV & IBN 7(the TV 18 group) are some most popular channel.

Television terrestrial broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82 stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1 kW of power) (1997).