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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released the quarterly Performance Indicator Report of Indian Telecom Services for the quarter ended December 2007. According to the report, the total wireline and wireless subscriber base reached 272.87 million in December 2007 as against 248.65 million in September 2007, an increase of 9.74 per cent. The teledensity reached 23.87 during the quarter under review as against 21.87 in the previous quarter.

The following are the highlights of the report:

Wireline services
The wireline subscriber base registered a decline from 39.58 million in endSeptember 2007 to 39.25 million in endDecember 2007. The rural wireline subscriber base stood at 11.75 million in December 2007 as compared to 11.99 million in September 2007.

While Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) had 80.79 per cent and 9.16 per cent market share respectively, the six private operators together had 10.05 per cent share.

Wireless services
The wireless subscriber base registered a growth of 11.74 per cent, increasing from 209.07 million in end-September 2007 to 233.62 million in the quarter under review. The rural wireless subscriber base rose from 43.98 million to 52.52 million during the same period, a growth of 19.42 per cent.

The GSM segment accounted for 73.72 per cent of the total mobile subscriber base while CDMA accounted for 26.28 per cent. The GSM segment reported a growth of 11.84 per cent, with a subscriber base of 172.23 million, while CDMA witnessed a growth of 11.44 per cent with 61.39 million subscribers.

Bharti Airtel continued to maintain its leadership position with a wireless subscriber base of 55.16 million and a market share of 23.61 per cent. It was followed by Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar with 40.96 million and 39.86 million wireless subscribers respectively.

ARPUs and MoUs
The all-India blended average revenue per user (ARPU) per month for GSM subscribers declined by 5.09 per cent, from Rs 275 to Rs 261. Segment-wise, the ARPU for post-paid GSM subscribers showed a decline of 0.63 per cent, from Rs 632 during the quarter ended September 2007 to Rs 628 during the following quarter. Prepaid ARPUs declined by 4.78 per cent, from Rs 230 to Rs 219.

Meanwhile, the minutes of usage (MoU) per subscriber per month increased by 0.46 per cent, from 462 minutes to 464 minutes. In the post-paid segment, the total MoUs increased from 953 minutes to 968. Prepaid MoUs also increased from 401 minutes to 407.

In contrast, on the CDMA front, the all-India blended ARPU per month for the quarter ended December 2007 was Rs 176 as compared to Rs 173 for the previous quarter. Uttar Pradesh (West) registered the lowest ARPU at Rs 146 per month while Mumbai had the highest ARPU at Rs 276. The total blended MoU per subscriber per month witnessed a sharp decline, from 413 minutes to 375 minutes. The lowest MoUs were in the Category A circles at 346 minutes per subscriber per month, approximately 8 per cent lower than the all-India figure of 375 minutes.

The ARPU per month for dial-up internet subscribers was Rs 210 at the end of December 2007.

Internet and broadband services
As of December 2007, there were 10.36 million wireline internet subscribers as compared to 9.63 million at the end of September 2007, a growth of nearly 7.64 per cent. In addition, at the end of December 2007, there were 57.83 million wireless data subscribers, capable of accessing data services including the internet through mobile handsets (GSM/CDMA). Meanwhile, the number of broadband subscribers grew by 17.23 per cent from 2.67 million to 3.13 million. Of these, 2.59 million were DSL based, 340,000 used cable modem, 100,000 used Ethernet LAN, 22,000 were fibre based, 29,000 were radio based, 15,000 used leased lines, and there were 29,000 others.

In terms of market share, while BSNL and MTNL together catered to 66.04 per cent of the internet market (compared to 64.65 per cent in the quarter ended September 2007), private internet service providers (ISPs) together accounted for 33.96 per cent. In the broadband segment too, BSNL alone held 46.22 per cent market share. Among the private companies, Bharti Airtel was in the lead with 13.19 per cent share of the market.

The bandwidth owned by various independent gateway service providers for their ISP operations and internet leased lines was reported to be 42 GB for downlinking and 41 GB for uplinking. In comparison, at the end of September 2007, it was 40 GB for downlinking and 39 GB for uplinking.

PMRTS and VSAT services
The subscriber base of public mobile radio trunk services (PMRTS) increased from 33,663 in September 2007 to 34,825 in December 2007, registering a growth of 3.45 per cent. Delhi was in the lead with 9,793 subscribers followed by Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai with 6,585, 4,542 and 3,682 subscribers respectively.

On the VSAT front, there was an addition of 2,057 subscribers during the quarter. The total number of VSAT subscribers increased from 65,352 in September 2007 to 67,409 in December 2007, a growth of 3.15 per cent as against a growth of 4.29 per cent during the quarter ended September 2007. Hughes Communications and HCL were the market leaders with 33.25 per cent market share each. (Note: Hughes' market share has been calculated using the subscriber figure for the quarter ended September 2007 quarter.) Bharti Airtel followed.

Quality of service
The performance of the basic service providers improved over the quarter ended September 2007 on parameters such as fault incidence, faults repaired by the next working day, mean time to repair, grade of service, metering and billing credibility, and customer care services (relating to closure of connection). However, their performance deteriorated with respect to parameters such as provision of telephones, call completion rate, customer care services (additional facilities), percentage of calls answered by operator (voice to voice) and time taken for refund of deposits after closures.

In contrast, wireless services showed improvement only in respect of the parameter on percentage of calls answered (voice-to-voice) within 60 seconds. On the remaining parameters, the performance either deteriorated or remained the same as in the previous quarter.

Financial performance
The total revenue from the telecom services was Rs 33.05 billion, up 5.66 per cent from Rs 31.28 billion in the quarter ended September 2007. Of this, the private sector, which witnessed an 8.26 per cent growth in revenue during the quarter, accounted for 67 per cent. The public sector recorded a mere 0.67 per cent increase in revenue.

The aggregate gross revenue (AGR) of the telecom sector was Rs 25.91 billion compared to Rs 24.88 billion and Rs 22.86 billion in the quarters ended September 2007 and June 2007 respectively. While the public sector operators' share of AGR stood at 38 per cent, that of the private operators was 62 per cent.