Tag: BSNL

ACT continues to lead in wireline broadband internet additions in 2015: TRAI October 2015

BENGALURU: South Indian broadband internet service provider Atria Convergence Technologies Private Limited (ACT) continued to lead in addition of new subscribers in wireline broadband internet services during the period between 31 December, 2014 and 31 October, 2015. ACT added 2.10 lakh net subscribers or 22.11 per cent of the all India additions during the period as per the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) report for the month ended 31 October, 2015. As per the TRAI reports, as on 31 December, 2014, ACT had 6.1 lakh subscribers (3.98 per cent of all India subscribers) and it had 8.2 lakh subscribers (5.04 per cent of all India subscribers) as on 31 October, 2015. Hence, its growth has also been the highest in percentage terms at 34.43 per cent during the period.

The top five players in India in the wireline broadband internet space in pecking order are the public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel), public sector Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Atria Convergence Technologies Private Limited (ACT) and You Broadband (You BB). Among these five, only BSNL and Airtel could be termed national players at present. BSNL, Airtel and MTNL also provide wireline and mobile services while Airtel also has a direct to home (DTH) segment.

Note: (1) 100,00,000 = 100 Lakh = 10 million = 1 crore

(2) TRAI reports indicate data in millions of numbers up to two decimal places. Hence it is assumed in this report that a figure of 0.47 million (4.7 lakh) subscribers for You BB for July-2015 would be granular to the nearest 10,000. While percentages perforce have been mentioned up to two decimal places, the accuracy may vary, depending upon the exact number.

(3) Industry sources say that TRAI numbers in the case of ACT for May-2015 are incorrect at 0.66 million and the correct number would be 0.693 million. This paper considers the number as 6.93 lakh or 0.693 million.

(4) MSOs have a number of subsidiaries and alliances, hence broadband numbers are split as applicable. The consolidated subscription numbers of these entities could be larger. Hathway is a case in point.

(5) Ortel’s numbers for Q3-2015 have been estimated from the numbers released by it for Q1-2015, Q2-2015, Q4-2015 and FY-2015.

(6) The term ‘operating revenue’ in this paper indicates ‘total income from operations.’

Please refer to Figure 1 below. Overall, during the 10 month period in CY-2015 until end October 2015, wireline broadband internet subscriber base in India grew by 6.2 per cent or by 9.5 lakh net new subscribers. During the period, wired broadband internet subscriber base increased from 153.2 lakh to 162.7 lakh. During the period, the combined share of wireline broadband internet subscribers of the top 5 players has dropped 246 basis points from 88.45 per cent as on 31 December, 2014 to 85.99 per cent as on 31 October, 2015. The drop in share between 30 September, 2015 and 31 October, 2015 was 31 basis points from 86.30 per cent to 85.99 per cent as on 31 October, 2015. Of the 9.5 lakh new all additions, 4.4 lakh (46.32 per cent of total additions) were added by the top five players. Compared to the all India growth of 6.2 per cent in subscribers, the top five players combined subscription numbers grew by 3.25 per cent.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) is not far behind ACT in subscriber additions during the 10 month period. Airtel has added two lakh net new subscribers or 21.05 per cent of the net new all India additions during the period. Its subscriber base grew two lakh (grew by 14.18 per cent) in the first 10 months of CY-2015. Airtel’s wireline broadband internet subscriber base grew from 14.1 lakh (9.20 per cent of the all India base) as on 31 December, 2014 to 16.1 lakh (9.90 per cent of the all India base) as on 31 October, 2015. While the share of subscribers of Airtel, ACT and You BB has been growing, the shares of the public sector BSNL and MTNL have fallen, either because of fall in number of subscribers or because of no growth in numbers. Please refer to Fig 2 below.

MSOs’ contribution to broadband

As mentioned above, the combined share of overall wired internet subscribers of the top five companies is declining, with other players increasing their contribution to wireline broadband subscription numbers.

The decline between 31 December, 2014 and 31 October, 2015 was 246 basis points. Other ISPs’ share of subscribers has increased to the same extent. Among the ‘Others’ are included Cable TV MSOs. MSOs in India, which are looking at broadband revenues to prop up their cable revenue numbers because of the comparatively higher ARPUs from broadband internet services. We can only repeat the figures that we have mentioned in our earlier report Wired Broadband: ACT, Airtel lead growth in Sep 2015; MSOs’ broadband numbers increasing.

MSOs have started reporting double digit increase in internet subscribers and revenue. Four MSOs – Hathway, Siti Cable, Ortel and Den added 1.09 lakh (25.34 per cent of total additions in Q2-2016 or the quarter ended 30 September, 2015) subscribers during that period as per their financial reports filed at the bourses. QoQ, the combined broadband subscribers in Q2-2016 added by the four MSOs increased by 58.36 per cent from 0.69 lakh added in Q1-2016. The third quarter of the current fiscal (Q3-2016) ended on 31 December, 2015 and companies will start filing their numbers over the next few weeks.

Some MSOs’ broadband numbers from our previous report

Broadband contributes in double digit percentages to the total incomes or operating revenue of two of the four companies – Hathway (about 25 per cent and growing) and Ortel (declined from 21.07 per cent in Q1-2015 to 16.80 per cent in Q2-2016). In the case of Siti Cable and Den, revenue from broadband services contributed to less than five per cent to their operating incomes. However, sources at Siti Cable say that the company will now be focusing at broadband internet services in a big way.

Hathway reported broadband revenue of Rs 71.9 crore (26.24 per cent of operating revenue) in the current quarter, 58.4 per cent higher YoY than the Rs 45.4 crore (17.23 per cent of operating revenue), and 10.4 per cent more than the Rs 65.1 crore (24.62 per cent of operating revenue) in the immediate trailing quarter. Last quarter, the company said that it had added 50,000 broadband subscribers in Q1-2016, and claimed a broadband subscriber base of 4.6 lakh, of which 1.7 lakh were under Docsis 3.0. Hathway says that broadband ARPU increased 6.8 per cent QoQ to Rs 616 from Rs 577 and that its Docsis 3 consumer ARPU has reached Rs 750.

Ortel’s broadband customers grew 8.9 per cent to 63,663 in Q2-2015 from 57,528 in Q2-2015 and grew 4.5 per cent from 60,900 in Q1-2016. Ortel’s broadband ARPU in Q2-2016 was Rs 395, in Q2-2015, it was Rs 398 and in Q1-2016, it was Rs 393. Ortel reported 11.7 per cent growth in YoY total broadband services revenue to Rs 8.1 crore (16.80 per cent of operating revenue) in the current quarter as compared to Rs 7.3 crore (19.89 per cent of operating revenue) and a 7.9 per cent QoQ growth from Rs 7.5 crore (17.40 per cent of operating revenue).

Siti Cable says that it has added 16,950 broadband subscribers in Q2-2016, taking its broadband subscriber base to 91,450 from 74,500 in the previous quarter. Broadband revenue increased 50 per cent YoY in Q2-2106 to Rs 9.30 crore (3.30 per cent of operating revenue) from Rs 6.20 crore (3.95 per cent of operating revenue) and increased 3.3 per cent QoQ from Rs 9 crore (2.83 per cent of operating revenue).

Den says that it has added 21,000 subscribers in Q2-2016 as compared to 12,000 in Q1-2016. Its total broadband subscriber base in Q2-2016 was 57,000 as compared to 35,000 in Q1-2016 and 16,000 in Q2-2015. Den’s broadband revenue increased 58 per cent in Q2-2015 to Rs 8.23 crore (3.03 per cent to operating revenue) as compared to the Rs 5.21 crore (1.96 per cent of operating revenue) in Q1-2016 and Rs 1.44 crore (0.49 per cent of operating revenue) in the corresponding year ago quarter.

January 18, 2016
The Indian wired broadband story until now in 2015

BENGALURU: The wired broadband internet market in India is dominated by the public sector company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which as per numbers reported by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had an all India market share of 62.63 per cent as of July 31, 2015. India’s wired broadband universe was 158.4 lakh, and BSNL had 99.2 lakh subscribers as on July 31, 2015. Please refer to Fig 1 below.

Note: (1) 100,00,000 = 100 Lakh = 10 million = 1 crore
(2) TRAI reports indicate data in millions of numbers. Hence it is assumed in this report that a figure of 0.47 million subscribers for You Broadband for July 31, 2015 would be granular to the nearest 10,000. While percentages perforce have been mentioned up to the two decimal places, the accuracy may vary, depending upon the exact number.
(3) Industry sources say that TRAI numbers in the case of ACT for May 31, 2015 are incorrect at 0.66 million and the correct number would be 0.693 million. Also the subscription numbers mentioned for ACT for August 31, 2015 and September 31, 2015 are industry estimates.
(4) This report examines performance by the top five broadband players in calendar year 2015, and also considers TRAI data for December 31, 2014 and November 30, 2014 to compare growth/declines.
(5) In all the charts and figures in this report, the acronym for the period indicates the last date of the month. For example, Dec-14 means December 31, 2014 and Jul-15 means July 31, 2015.

The Indian wired broadband subscription universe has expanded by 3.39 per cent (5.2 lakh) in calendar year 2015 since from the December 31, 2014 number of 153.2 lakh to 158.4 lakh as on July 31, 2015. Among the top five wired internet service providers in India, the top three – BSNL, Bharati Airtel (Airtel) and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) also provide voice (telephone) services and many of their wired internet customers use both services – voice and data. According to industry sources, Airtel has used separate Fibre to the home (FTTH) or Fibre to the curb (FTTC) in some places for data, but in general, broadband is carried on voice lines by the three big players. The other two companies in this report are ACT (Atria Convergence Technologies) and You Broadband India Private Limited.

It is significant to note that wireline telephone voice subscribers have been declining at an average rate of about 0.49 per cent per month. The total number of wireline voice subscribers declined by 3.32 per cent (almost equal to the above mentioned 3.39 per cent increase in wired broadband internet subscribers) to 26104333 from 27000105 between December 31, 2015 and July 31, 2015, as per TRAI reports. Please refer to Fig 1A below

Among the top 5 players, the two public broadband service providers have shown a slight linear declining to flat trend in terms of number of subscribers, but since the overall universe is growing, their market share has been slowly declining.

Please refer to Fig 2A below for BSNL’s numbers. BSNL’s subscriber base declined by 0.6 per cent between December 31, 2014 and July 31, 2015. In fact, BSNL reported an almost flat subscriber base of 99.8 lakh between December 31, 2014, and February 28, 2015, with numbers declining as on March 31, 2015 to 99.6 lakh, declining to 99.2 lakh as on April 30, 2015, and further declining to 99 lakh as on May 31, 2015 before increasing to 99.1 lakh and 99.2 lakh as on June 30, 2015 and July 31, 2015 respectively. At the same time, its market share declined 251 basis points from 65.14 per cent during the period under consideration in this report.

Please refer to Fig 2B. The private players have reported a growth in wired broadband internet subscriber numbers and market share. ACT has shown the largest growth. (Please refer to Fig 2C below for ACT numbers).
Airtel and You Broadband have both shown an increase in number of wired broadband internet subscribers as well as in terms of market share, while the public sector MTNL has reported a decline across both the parameters.

MTNL’s wired broadband internet subscribers grew from 11.3 lakh on December 31, 2014 to 11.4 lakh on January 31, 20155. The company’s numbers remained flat at 11.4 lakh until May 31, 2015 before declining to 11.3 lakh on June 31, 2015, a status which continued even in July 2015. Hence it has shown no growth in its broadband wired internet subscription base during the period under consideration in this report. However, its market share declined 25 basis points from 7.38 per cent to 7.13 per cent during that period.

Airtel has a pan-India presence. It grew by 6.38 per cent by adding about 90,000 wired internet broadband users between December 31, 2014 and July 31, 2015, thereby increasing its market share from 9.20 per cent to 9.47 per cent. Airtel’s contribution to the all India increase of 5.2 lakh in wired broadband internet customers during the period under consideration was 17.31 per cent.

You Broadband offers high speed internet, voice and video services through cable modem platform to residential, SME and corporate customers in 12 cities in the country. The company grew 11.9 per cent by adding 50,000 subscribers between December 31, 2014 and July 31, 2015 and grew its market share by 23 basis points from 2.74 per cent to 2.97 per cent during the period under consideration in this report.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the regional player ACT is spread across the towns and cities of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. ACT presently has 10 lakh plus subscribers that include cable as well as FTTH broadband.

Among the five top wired broadband internet service providers in India, ACT has shown the largest growth, both in absolute numbers and in market share. Please refer to Fig 2C below. Overall, the company’s subscription numbers increased 22.95 per cent as on July 31, 2015 to 7.5 lakh from 6.1 lakh on December 31, 2015. Industry sources say that ACT had a subscriber base of 7.9 as of September 30, 2015 and of 7.7 lakh as of August 31, 2015. Hence, the company added 1.2 lakh subscribers between December 31, 2014 and July 31, 2015, or added 26.92 per cent to the all India wired broadband internet subscriber base growth of 5.2 lakhs mentioned above during the period.

ACT’s market share during the period from December 31, 2014 to July 31, 2015 increased by 75 basis points to 4.73 per cent from 3.98 per cent (Please keep the granularity of reportage of 10000 subscriber numbers in mind). The company’s wired internet broadband subscription base is now at about 50 per cent of the behemoth Airtel.

Though the breakup in regions has not been indicated by TRAI in its reports, it would not be surprising if ACT is the largest private player in South India, maybe ahead of even Airtel. Among the non-voice ISP’s ACT’s broadband subscriber base of 7.5 lakh as of July 31, 2015 certainly makes it the largest player in the country.

Concluding remarks

Quality of the product and services as well as after sales services speak for themselves. Pricing also plays the most critical role in a price sensitive market like India. The bigger players such as BSNL, MTNL and Airtel have been insensitive to these aspects while riding on the brand value of their other business operations such as wireless. They seem to have not noticed the simple fact that internet is rapidly becoming an integral part of everyday life and more so wired internet when the user is in the office or at home. For them, wired broadband is just one more product that adds a small fraction to their topline and bottomline. Wired broadband is the stepchild. It is here that the smaller players have stepped in and offered a superior product and prompt service and after sales service at a price that is often a fraction of what their bigger peers offer.

It is the smaller regional players such as ACT and You Broadband that have focused on the customers while not losing sight of their bottomline at the same time. In the case of the telecom companies, product quality and sensitivities to the customers’ requirements and after sales service are sorely lacking say some of their users.

Companies such as ACT and You Broadband have been so far plucking low hanging fruit. They started by offering internet services in the areas where they had cable television subscribers. ACT is now expanding in adjacent areas, and exploring newer territories. ACT has recently started operations in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. FTTH certainly offers a better experience to the consumer when compared to other modes such as copper that the traditional voice service providers have been using, or wireless or DOCSIS 2.0 or 3.0 that many an MSO has started depending upon to increase ARPUs.

With cable MSOs, satellite, WiFi, and 4G wireless service providers vying for their customers, the internet ecosystem in India is rapidly changing, and for the better in India. Telecom service providers are facing some of the fiercest competition in decades in the wired broadband internet space. The industry expects that one of the biggest game changers in the internet ecosystem will be Reliance Jio. As MSOs slowly start focusing more and more on wired internet through DOCSIS, the race for numbers and profits is going to get even bigger.

Personalised high quality services that the next door cable operator can offer could play a big difference in who will get more traction. Industry sources claim that Airtel has started taking the competition from the regional wired internet players seriously by improving its after sales service and offering differentiated and competitive packages in the areas where the regional players operate, while product quality when compared to the smaller players is still work in progress. Reliance Jio is so far an unknown quality… only time will tell how the King (customer) will benefit and who it will chose to offer it what is now becoming a basic need for every human being.

October 4, 2015
Broadband subscribers see 4% rise in July despite mobile growth

NEW DELHI: The number of broadband subscribers increased by 4.1 per cent between June and July to touch 113.32 million at the end of July. The total at the end of June stood at 108.85 million.

Expectedly, the largest growth was seen among mobile devices users (phones and dongles), which rose from 92.7 million to 97.04 million signifying a rise of 4.68 per cent.

According to information provided by service providers to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), wired subscribers grew from 15.7 million to 15.84 signifying a minuscule growth of 0.9 per cent. But there was a fall of 2.84 per cent among fixed wireless subscribers (WI Fi, Wi Max, Point to Point Radio, and VSAT) from 450,000 to 440,000.

The top five service providers constituted 83.83 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of July. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (26.51 million), Vodafone (22.71 million), BSNL (18.43 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (17.43 million) and Reliance Communications Group (9.93 million).

Some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base, based on minimum usage decided by them.

As on 31 July, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.92 million), Bharti Airtel (1.50 million), MTNL (1.13 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.75 million) and YOU Broadband (0.47 million).

The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (25.01 million), Vodafone (22.70 million), Idea Cellular (17.42 million), Reliance Communications Group (9.81 million) and BSNL (8.51 million).

September 30, 2015
BSNL leaps towards Digital India, to upgrade broadband speed

NEW DELHI: In an effort to fulfil its aim of linking the nation through the Internet, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is upgrading broadband speed by a minimum 2 Mbps at no additional cost for consumers pan India from 1 October.

Earlier, BSNL had offered free night calling from BSNL landlines to all operator networks from 9 pm to 7 am and free incoming roaming services for its mobile customers.

BSNL is also offering 1 Gb free E-Mail box to customers from the existing 50 Mb mail box.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad made this announcement at a function in Gurgaon. Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjeet Singh was also present along with BSNL CMD Anupam Srivastav, director (CFA) N K Gupta, director (HR) Sujata Ray, and Haryana CGM R C Arya.

The speed upgradation will benefit all existing and new BSNL broadband customers. Under this scheme, BSNL is upgrading the speed of existing broadband plans of 512 Kbps and 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps speed. With this upgradation, BSNL customers can access and surf the internet at high speed.

BSNL is the first service provider to provide the Broadband Access to the country. The company launched broadband services over its landline in India in 2005 with speed of 256kbps and above over the Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) based IP infrastructure in urban as well as rural areas.

Since then BSNL is constantly working to increase the broadband speed for enhanced customer experience in urban and rural areas as envisaged in the New Telecom Policy 2012. Now, BSNL offers Broadband services with various plans ranging from 2 mbps to 100 mbps speed using ADSL/VDSL and fibre based GPON technology in a very affordable price range. The company currently has around 10 million broadband customers including about 1.1 million rural customers.

This upgradation shall enhance customer experience while surfing on internet and enjoying live video streaming by all customers even in the low price range. This scheme is expected to attract new customers for subscribing BSNL broadband customers in an affordable manner.

BSNL has more than 77 million mobile customers, more than 16 million wired line telephone connections and around 10 million wired broadband connections.

September 7, 2015
Despite Digital India talk, broadband subscribers less than 109 million by June

NEW DELHI: Following a growth of 4.21 per cent in mobile users, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 104.96 million at the end of May to 108.85 million at the end of June with monthly growth rate of a mere 3.71 per cent, despite the emphasis on Digital India.

The Mobile devices users (phones and dongles) went up from 88.96 million to 92.7 million. Fixed Wireless subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point-to-Point Radio & VSAT) users went up from 440,000 to 450,000, showing an increase of 1.96 per cent, while wired subscribers rose from 15.56 million to 56.7 million, showing a rise of just 0.9 per cent.

The top five service providers constituted 83.83 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of June. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (24.56 million), Vodafone (22.08 million), BSNL (18.20 million), Idea Cellular (16.67 million) and Reliance Communications Group (9.74 million).

According to the figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base, based on minimum usage decided by them.

As on 30 June, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.91 million), Bharti Airtel (1.47 million), MTNL (1.13 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (720,000) and You Broadband (460,000).

The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (23.09 million), Vodafone (22.07 million), Idea Cellular (16.67 million), Reliance Communications Group (9.63 million) and BSNL (8.29 million) as on 30 June.

September 2, 2015
ABS Group ties up with BSNL for on-demand services

MUMBAI: In a bid to expand its services in a highly competitive environment, the Atul Saraf led ABS Group has lined up a spree of developments. The company, which is all set to launch its MPEG 4 headend, is now strengthening its value added services (VAS) offering.

ABS has entered into an agreement with telecom giant BSNL. As part of this, BSNL’s 10 million broadband subscribers can access the VAS and movies-on-demand services of ABS through its portal www.absplay.in.

“We are working on setting up the servers in the BSNL premise for our value added services,” ABS CMD Atul B Saraf tells Indiantelevision.com.

The portal will go live in August, 2015 after which BSNL broadband subscribers can access the library that contains more than 1000 movies, 60,000 songs and videos and approximately 70-80 web channels. “It is a subscription based model. There will be a revenue share between BSNL and us,” informs Saraf.

The content will range from Bollywood, Hollywood, Tollywood, regional, sports, devotional, comedy, horror, action to music, short length videos and full length videos. While refraining to divulge the pricing of the content, Saraf says, “It will be in a very cost effective manner.”

Close to 25 per cent of the catalogue has been purchased by ABS, while 75 per cent of the content will be on revenue sharing basis with content creators. “We have bought content from both national and international content providers. We will have a revenue share with them,” he informs.

“We saw a gap in the VAS space and so tried to tap into it. This is part of our new revenue generating launches,” says Saraf.

July 22, 2015
Mobiles boost broadband usage by 4.17% during May

NEW DELHI: Mobile users helped give a spurt to broadband usage in the country to touch 104.96 million by the end of May, which signified a monthly growth rate of 4.17 per cent.

It may be recalled that in April this year the broadband users in the country crossed the 100 million mark for the first time.

Mobile devices users (phones and dongles) went up from 84.79 million to 88.96 million between April and May, signifying an increase of 4.91 per cent.

However, Fixed Wireless subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point to Point Radio and VSAT) showed a minor decline of 0.17 per cent thus remaining at just over 440,000 users.

Wired subscribers went up from 15.52 million to 15.56 million, showing an increase of 0.23 per cent.

Based on reports received from the service providers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said the top five service providers constituted 83.75 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of May.

These service providers were Bharti Airtel (23.39 million), Vodafone (21.27 million), BSNL (18.50 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (15.76 million) and Reliance Communications Group (8.99 million).

The regulator noted that some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base, based on minimum usage decided by them.

As on 31 May, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.90 million), Bharti Airtel (1.45 million), MTNL (1.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.66 million) and YOU Broadband (0.45 million).

The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (21.93 million), Vodafone (21.27 million), Idea Cellular (15.76 million), Reliance Communications Group (8.88 million) and BSNL (8.59 million).

July 11, 2015
Broadband subscribers breach 100 million mark in April

NEW DELHI: Even as the Government is making efforts to reach the north east and to create awareness of Digital India, the number of broadband subscribers for the first time crossed the 100 million mark to register a base of 100.76 million at the end of April.

This was a slight increase of 1.57 per cent over the figure of March, which had shown 99.20 million subscribers.

This was primarily due to mobile devices users (phones and dongles), which grew from 93.24 million to 84.79 million, thus showing a growth of 1.86 per cent. Fixed wireless subscribers (Wi-fi, Wi-Max, Point to Point Radio and VSAT) showed a meager growth of 0.35 per cent and stood at just over 440, 000 while wired subscribers showed an even lesser growth of 0.04 per cent at just around 15.52 million.

The top five service providers constituted 83.40 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of April.

These service providers were Bharti Airtel (22.63 million), Vodafone (20.30 million), BSNL (18.02 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (15.01 million) and Reliance Communications Group (8.08 million).

Some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base based on minimum usage decided by them.

As on 30 April, 2015, the top five wired broadband service providers were BSNL (9.92 million), Bharti Airtel (1.44 million), MTNL (1.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.68 million) and You Broadband (0.45 million).

As on 30 April, the top five wireless broadband service providers were Bharti Airtel (21.19 million), Vodafone (20.29 million), Idea Cellular (15.01 million), BSNL (8.10 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.97 million).

June 16, 2015
BSNL begins offering free nationwide roaming services on mobile

NEW DELHI: Free roaming services commenced on the largest public sector mobile operator in the country, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), allowing all its mobile customers to receive incoming calls at no cost from 15 June, 2015.

As BSNL has the largest base in rural and semi-urban areas, this concession will go a long way in promoting the growth of mobile usage.

“Now BSNL mobile customers will not need to carry multiple SIMs and handsets during roaming. They are free to talk as long as they want without worrying about any charges during incoming calls. In fact, it is like a dream of ‘One Nation One Number’ coming true,” said BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava.

On 2 June, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had announced that the telco would be launching free roaming scheme from 15 June.

However, BSNL had then said that it had not received any communication from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regarding the roaming scheme.

BSNL had a mobile subscriber base of 7.72 crore as of March-end.

June 15, 2015
BSNL partners Bangladesh cable co. to bolster broadband reach in NE India

NEW DELHI: In an effort to strengthen Digital India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has partnered with a Bangladesh company to improve internet connectivity in the northeast part of the country.

BSNL will provide international bandwidth for internet from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to Agartala, while the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) will provide the international port (IP) transit service from Cox’s Bazar Cable Landing Station.

The terrestrial route in Bangladesh will be Cox’s Bazar-Chittagong-Comilla-B.Baria-Akhaura for primary link and Cox’s Bazar-Chitagong-Comilla-Dhaka-Narshindi-Bhairab-Akhaura the secondary link.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Company has to lay optical fibre cable (OFC) of the 30 km approximate distance from Brahmanbaria to Akhaura, which adjoins Tripura.

BSNL will set up international long distance (ILD) gateway at Agartala along with associated equipment.

June 15, 2015