Thursday, Apr 14, 2005
India targets 250 million phone connections by 2007
Our Bureau
New Delhi , April 13
INDIA has crossed the 100-million telephone mark to become the fifth largest telecom network in the world after China, the US, Japan and Germany.
"We have visualised that by 2007, the country will have 250 million telephones and the teledensity will be about 22 per cent. By that time the entire country shall be carpeted by telecom network and all the villages connected by phone," the Minister for Communications and IT, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, told a news conference here.
He said the potential to expand telecom network in India is immense as its teledensity is currently pegged at only about 9 per cent against over 100 per cent in the US, Japan and Germany. China has a teledensity of 55 per cent. "The demand has already saturated in the developed countries, and India is bound to surpass them in the next 4-5 years," Mr Maran said.
Of the estimated 100.27 million total telephone connections in India as on April 13, 2005, close to 53.94 million are mobile connections and the remaining 46.33 million fixed line connections. With this, the number of phones (fixed and cellular) per 100 population stands at 9.13 per cent. In 2004, with 76.54 million telephone connections in the country, this figure stood at 7.08 per cent.
Spelling out his vision for the next two years, Mr Maran said the Internet connections are expected increase to 18 million by 2007 from 5.45 million in December 2004. "By this time, broadband connections are targeted to be 9 million. To enable faster expansion of wireless telephony, and other services, the required spectrum shall be made available to the operators," Mr Maran said, adding that increasing competition is expected to result in a further fall in tariffs thus benefiting the consumers at large.
Mr Maran said that while India would target 150 million additional phone connections by 2007, state-owned BSNL and MTNL are expected to add 80 million lines during the period.
On the issue of synergising the operations of the two telecom corporations - MTNL and BSNL - Mr Maran said, "Consultations are on. DoT is aware of the suggestions of ICICI Securities (Advisor to Government on the BSNL-MTNL merger), and we are considering it. We will come to a decision and take it to the Cabinet."
Copyright (c) 2005, The Hindu Business Line.