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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a report on "Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators" for the quarter October-December 2005. The report provides an update on growth trends in various telecom segments. We bring you the key highlights of the report...

FIXED LINE SERVICES
As of December 31, 2005, the total fixed line subscriber base, including WLL(F), stood at 48.84 million. Fixed line services were being provided by five licensed private operators –­ Bharti Telesonic Limited, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), HFCL Infotel, Shyam Telelink and Reliance Infocomm. This was in addition to the services provided by the incumbents –­ Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

BSNL and MTNL had a market share of 75 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, while the five private operators had a combined share of 17 per cent. The October-December 2005 quarter saw an increase in the market share of private operators by 2 per cent while BSNL's share fell by the same amount. MTNL's share remained the same.

During the quarter under review, there was an increase of 834,081 lines. The number of direct exchange lines (DELs) increased from 48,001,992 to 48,836,073 as of end-December 2005. Overall, there was a 1.74 per cent growth in subscriber base during the quarter.

A comparison of rural and urban DELs shows that there were 13.98 million rural DELs as against 34.86 million urban DELs. While BSNL had 99.74 per cent market share in rural DELs, down from 100 per cent in the previous quarter, in the urban areas its market share was 66 per cent, down from 67 per cent previously. MTNL had an 11 per cent share in the urban areas while private operators had 23 per cent share. Although infinitesimal, the quarter also saw the entry of private operators in the rural sector. The share of private operators in rural DELs amounted to only 0.26 per cent; but it is nevertheless a start.

Other performance indicators
Public call offices (PCOs): During the quarter, 82,945 new PCOs were added, taking the total number of PCOs in the country to 3,734,068. BSNL was the leader with 54 per cent or 2,023,673 PCOs, followed by private operators with 38 per cent or 1,429,138 PCOs, and MTNL with 8 per cent or 281,876 PCOs.

Village public telephones (VPTs): The October-December 2005 quarter saw an addition of 4,308 VPTs in the country, taking the total to 539,356. While BSNL added 14 VPTs, TTSL (Maharashtra) and HFCL reduced 6 and 15 VPTs respectively. Of the 607,491 villages in India, 68,135 do not have any VPT.

MOBILE SERVICES
The October-December 2005 quarter saw the mobile subscriber base touch 75.94 million. As of December 31, 2005, there were 58.49 million GSM subscribers and 17.45 million CDMA subscribers.

The quarter witnessed an increase of 10.87 million subscribers over the base of 65.07 million at the end of September 2005. This represented an overall growth rate of 16.72 per cent vis-à-vis 13.42 per cent in the preceding quarter.

CDMA growth rates increased significantly, from 14.37 per cent at the end of September 2005 to 22.79 per cent at the end of December 2005. In comparison, GSM growth rates rose marginally, from 13.16 per cent to 15.03 per cent during the same period.

The Bharti Group, with 21.5 per cent market share, led the mobile industry in terms of number of subscribers. It was followed by BSNL with 19.53 per cent market share, Reliance Infocomm with 19.33 per cent, the Hutchison Group with 15.02 per cent and Idea Cellular with 8.52 per cent.

Although Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and BSNL/MTNL had licences to offer mobile services in all 23 service circles, Bharti was the only private operator to actually offer services in all of them. Reliance provided services in all the circles except Jammu & Kashmir, BSNL offered services in all its 21 circles while TTSL offered services in its 20 licensed service areas. During the quarter, Dishnet Wireless Services started mobile services in the Orissa and West Bengal circles. Further, in this quarter, Bharti's subscriber base in Maharashtra and BSNL's subscriber base in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka crossed 1 million.

Mobile service trends
The share of prepaid subscribers in the total subscriber base for both GSM and CDMA operators increased marginally for the quarter ended December 2005.

As far as average revenue per user (ARPU) is concerned, CDMA and GSM operators were at extreme ends of the spectrum. While the all-India ARPU for CDMA operators rose by 4.92 per cent to Rs 256 at the end of December 2005 from Rs 244 in September 2005, the ARPU for GSM operators declined by 3.2 per cent to Rs 362 from Rs 374 during the same period. Further, the post-paid ARPU for CDMA operators increased to Rs 511 from Rs 440 whereas it decreased for GSM operators from Rs 646 to Rs 621. However, ARPUs in the prepaid segment showed a slight increase for both sets of operators.

Meanwhile, the average minutes of use (MoU) per subscriber per month for GSM operators increased by 6.79 per cent from 368 in September 2005 to 393 in December 2005. On the other hand, the MoU for CDMA operators declined by 1.6 per cent from 470 to 462. The ratio of incoming-to-outgoing minutes continued to be 60:40 for GSM operators and was estimated to be 56:44 for CDMA operators against 58:42 in the previous quarter.

The all-India blended revenue per minute (RPM) declined for the quarter by 8.9 per cent, from Rs 1.01 in September 2005 to Re 0.92 in December 2005, for GSM operators and rose by 5.76 per cent from Re 0.52 to Re 0.55 for CDMA operators.

Mobile tariff trends
As far as the lowest local outgoing GSM tariffs available in the market are concerned, in the post-paid segment, the lowest available effective charge per minute was Rs 1.20 while in the prepaid segment it was Rs 1.27. In the case of CDMA tariffs, the lowest available effective charge in the post-paid segment was Rs 1.31.

INTERNET SERVICES
The internet subscriber base touched 6.7 million by end-December 2005. The subscriber base grew by 9.44 per cent during the October-December quarter. A total of 163 internet service providers (ISPs) were operational.

Of the total users, the number of broadband subscribers (with a download speed of 256 kbps or more) increased to 903,000, representing a growth of 48 per cent over the previous quarter. BSNL managed to retain the top slot in terms of internet subscriber base. It had a reported subscriber base of 2.59 million, higher than its base of 2.26 million at the end of September 2005. MTNL was next with a subscriber base of 1.31 million followed by Sify with 877,000 subscribers. Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) was in the fourth position with 467,000 subscribers. Reliance Communications Infrastructure remained in fifth place with 340,000 subscribers.

Based on the figures reported by 34 ISPs, the average MoU per subscriber per month stood at approximately 189 minutes. The ARPU for internet usage was about Rs 210 per month. The segment saw revenues of about Rs 4.24 billion during the quarter.

Internet telephony: Fifty-one of the 121 ISPs permitted by TRAI to offer internet telephony provide such services. The total MoU for this service stood at 58.66 million at the end of December 2005 vis-à-vis 47.31 million in the previous quarter, thus indicating a growth of about 23 per cent.

Leased line connectivity: The number of leased line connections remained at 14,364 during the quarter ended December 2005.

PUBLIC MOBILE RADIO TRUNKED SERVICE
The PMRTS subscriber base increased from 27,867 in September 2005 to 28,025 in December 2005, registering a marginal growth rate of 0.57 per cent. Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai together accounted for as much as 71.93 per cent of the total PMRTS subscriber base. Delhi led with a market share of 8,901 subscribers followed by Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai with 4,659, 3,829 and 2,769 subscribers respectively.

VSAT SERVICES
VSAT services were being provided by nine service providers during the OctoberDecember 2005 quarter. According to figures received by TRAI, 3,494 new subscribers were added during this period. The total number of subscribers increased from 43,083 in September 2005 to 46,577 in December 2005, indicating a growth of 8.11 per cent as against a lower growth rate of 6.23 per cent seen during the previous quarter.

HCL Comnet maintained its position as market leader with 16,192 VSAT subscribers followed by Hughes with 14,267, Bharti BT with 6,929, and Comsat Max with 4,661 VSAT subscribers respectively.

HCL Comnet added the maximum number of new connections (1,310) with a growth rate of 8.8 per cent. In comparison, however, players such as ITI and GNFC saw very little or no growth in subscriber numbers.