By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 27, 2013: AS per latest data released by TRAI, the proportion of VLR subscribers is approximately 83.94% of the total wireless subscriber base reported by the service providers at the end of August 2013. For the month of July 2013 the figure was 83.60%. As per the latest telecom subscription data, out of the total 876.72 million wireless subscribers in the country, 735.88 million were active on the date of Peak VLR for the month of August 2013.

Service Provider wise, Idea leads the tally with 97.80% followed by Vodafone (95.94%) and Bharti (95.05%). Circle-wise, Maharashtra has the highest proportion of VLR subscribers with 89.82% followed by Assam (88.45%) and West Bengal (88.02%). TN (including Chennai) has the lowest proportion with 73.47%.

The TRAI data indicates that overall Teledensity in the Country increased from 73.54 at the end of July, 2013 to 73.60 at the end of August. With the number of telephone subscribers in the country increasing to 906.18 million at the end of August 2013, the overall Teledensity in India has increased from 73.54 at the end of July, 2013 to 73.60 at the end of August, 2013. As per the latest data, the subscription in the urban areas slightly declined from 548.92 million in July, 2013 to 548.90 million at the end of August, 2013. Subscription in rural areas increased from 355.54 million to 357.27 million during the same period. The monthly growth rate of urban and rural subscription is - 0.003% and 0.49% respectively. The overall urban Teledensity has decreased from 146.02 to 145.78 whereas Rural Teledensity increased from 41.63 to 41.80.

As per the latest data reported by the service providers, by the end of August 2013 about 100.20 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number (MNP requests). In MNP Zone-I (Northern & Western India) maximum number of requests have been received in Rajasthan (about 9.85 million) followed by Gujarat (about 8.67 million) whereas in MNP Zone-II (Southern & Eastern) maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka (about 11.65 million) followed by Andhra Pradesh Service area (about 9.08 million). In the month of August 2013, total number of subscribers who have submitted their request for MNP is 2.37 million.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released the latest telecom subscription data as on 31st August 2013. As per this data, the total number of subscribers has increased to 906.18 million with a net addition of 1.72 million subscribers during the month – showing a monthly growth of 0.19%. Out of the total subscriber base, 548.90 million are from the urban areas and the remaining 357.27 million are the rural subscribers.

Total Broadband subscriber base has increased from 15.24 million at the end of July 2013 to 15.28 million at the end of August 2013, there by showing a monthly growth of 0.26%. Yearly growth in broadband subscribers is 3.10% during the last one year (August 2012 to August 2013).

As on 31st August 2013, there are 162 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which are providing broadband services in the country. Out of these, 113 ISPs have provided broadband subscription data for the month of August 2013, for the rest of the ISPs data from previous month has been retained. Top five ISPs in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are: BSNL (9.98 million), Bharti Airtel (1.43 million), MTNL (1.08 million), Hathway (0.37 million) and You Broadband (0.33 million).