Over 32 million new telephones were added during April-January of the current financial year, with five million additions occurring in January alone, taking the total number of phones in the country to 130.8 million.
The addition of 32 million phones in April-January period is higher by about 14 million phones compared to the corresponding period of last year.
With this addition, the tele-density has increased from 8.8 per cent in January 2005 to 11.7 per cent at the end of January 2006.
Mobile phones contributed the most. The number of mobile phones (including 20.8 million WLL (M)) as on January 31, 2006 is about 83 million, which is over 63 per cent of the total phones. Out of the net addition of 32 million phones during the current year, about 31 million were mobile phones - which accounts for nearly 97 per cent of the total additions.
The private sector has played a major role by accounting for about 81 per cent of the expansion during these ten months. The private sector has so far provided 72.4 million phones as on January 31, 2006, which is over 55 per cent of the total phones in the country.
The number of broadband subscribers in the country for the quarter ending December 2005 touched 885,000 from 601,000 at the beginning of the quarter (end September 2005).
Under the Bharat Nirman Yojana, a total 66,822 villages are to be provided with Village Public Telephones by November 2007. Against this target, as on January 31, 2006 a total of 17182 villages had been provided with Village Public Telephones.