Telecom growth data of Trai, DoT mismatch

The domestic telecom subscriber is undoubtedly growing but to get a correct figure on the key indices like number of additions per month and total user base is not a clear assessment as the official figures of the government and that of the regulator do not match.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) figures released on Thursday for April said the sector expanded by adding 4.9 million in the number of telecom subscribers in April, thereby taking the total number of telephones in the country to more than 211.7 million as compared to 146.20 million during April 2006, a growth of 44.8% during May 2006-April 2007.

All these made the teledensity to improve further to 18.7%, DoT said. This is the only figure in which both the DoT and Trai figures match. The same day Trai figures stated that telecom sector continues to grow with an addition of 5.15 million wireless subscribers in April, taking the total telephone users to 212.02 million and tele-density to 18.74%.

Even in broadband figures the differences remain. The government figures said growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of March, about 2.29 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached 962 cities.

The telecom regulator said total broadband connections in the country has reached 2.43 million by April-end with an addition 0.13 million connections during the month, compared to 0.09 million added during march, a growth of 5.65%.

DoT officials claim the figures released are accurate as it takes into account each and every addition and subtraction of subscribers till the last count.

DoT said the GSM segment has also shown an increase of 4.13 million during April. While the CDMA segment registered an increase of 1.01 million, the fixed segment has declined by 0.23 million. Trai said in the wireline segment, subscriber base increased by 0.04 million in April to reach 40.82 million.