India's overall teledensity rose to 18 % in Jan, 2007

India's overall teledensity rose to 18% in February from 17.45% in January Government said on Wednesday. It was 12.18% at the end of February 2006. The total number of telephones in the country grew by 3.2% to more than 203mn from 196.7mn at the end of January.

India has now become the third largest telecom market in the world, next only to China and the United States. The rapid expansion of the telecom sector maintained its increasing trend with an addition of about 6.3mn phones during February, an average daily addition of more than two lakh lines.

During the month, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi added more than three lakh subscribers each in the GSM segment. Almost the entire growth registered during the month was in the wireless segment - with GSM contributing 4.88mn and CDMA 1.35mn, respectively. There was a marginal increase of about 67,000 subscribers in the fixed line segment.

In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of 2.9% with a net addition of 1.25mn subscribers. The Maharashtra circle contributed the maximum to this addition. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi added more than four lakh subscribers each during the month.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of January, about 2.12mn broadband connections were provided. The coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached 815 cities. Further, the total number of existing ISP licencees is 383.

Under the Bharat Nirman Programme, of the 66822 villages, some 39741 villages have been provided with Village Public Telephones so far (VPTs). The remaining 27081 villages are to be covered by November this year.