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Telecommunication Industry in India

09/05/2010 By Sathyanarayanan

History of telecom industry in India

The history of telephone services in India found its beginning when a 50-line manualtelephone exchange was commissioned in Kolkata in the year 1882 in less than five yearsafter Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. While India became independent inthe year 1947, the country had about 82,000 telephone connections, which slowly rose upto 3.05 million by the year 1984. The telecom sector in India was a governmentmonopoly until the year 1994 when liberalization was gradually unrolled. For the firsttime, cellular services were launched in India in Kolkata in the year 1995.

An Overview of the Telecommunication Industry in India

A mobile handset

Talking of telecommunications sector in India today, we can primarily identify twosegments namely Fixed Service Provider (FSPs) and Cellular Services. Some of theessential and basic telecom services forming part of Indian telecom industry includetelephone, radio, television and Internet. Telecom industry in the country lays a specialemphasis on some of the advanced and the latest technical innovations like GSM( GlobalSystem for Mobile Communications), CDMA(Code Division Multiple Access),PMRTS(Public Mobile Radio Trunking Services), Fixed Line and WLL(Wireless LocalLoop ). Especially, India has a flourishing market in GSM mobile service, while the

number of subscribers is on rapid and dramatic increase. The Indian telecommunicationsindustry boasts as being one among the most rapidly growing chunks on the globe.Experts around the world estimate that India holds the promise of emerging as the secondlargest telecom market of the world.

Figures published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), reveal that thenumber of telecom connection subscribers in India reached 562.21 million in December2009, marking a 3.5 percent increase over the number 543.20 million reported inNovember 2009. This figure indicates that the average teledensity (number of telephonesper 100 persons) has gone up to 47.89.

On account of a dramatic increase in the earnings from mobile and landline connections,the telecom industry in India made revenue of US$ 8.56 billion during the quarter endingon December 31, 2009 thereby witnessing a recovery from the economic downturn.

Business Monitor International has stated that at present, India is adding up about 8-10million mobile subscribers every succeeding month. Estimates have revealed that byJune2012, almost half Indias population will be in possession of a mobile phone.

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the country. Bharti Airtel has the credit of being the first Indian operator to cross asubscriber base of 50 million.

It is predicted that mobile number portability (MNP) will be available throughout Indiaby the second quarter of 2010, initially in the cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and

Mumbai, the four metros of India. Also, 3G (third generation) mobile services are foundbeing introduced in all the major cities across the nation. The country has auctioned three3G spectrum slots to private bidders. However, the number of subscribers for broadbandconnections is increasing at a slow pace.