Indian Telecom

Indian Telecom Scenario:

The current world average penetration for the developing world is 6 lines per 100 people and the average for the world as a whole is 10 lines per 100 people. In India it is roughly 2 lines per 100 people. Nearly 343,000 villages, out of a total of 600,000 villages in the country, are covered by telephone services (end of September 1999).

The Indian telecommunication network is undergoing a revolutionary change, in terms of coverage, quality and range of services. As of September 1999, the network equipment capacity has grown to 22.63 million lines in about 25,394 exchanges and has registered an annual growth rate of 16.5 percent over the last six years, amongst the fastest in the world. J P Morgan, the global equity research and investment company, has forecast an annual growth of over 20 percent for the Indian telecom sector over the next five years.

India possesses 1,468,000 route kilometers of Trunk Automatic Exchange (TAX); 86,601 route kilometers of microwave systems and 108,032 route kilometers of optical fibre systems in the long-distance transmision network, as on 31 September, 1999.

Long-distance traffic is carried mostly by coaxial cable and low-capacity microwave radio relay; since 1985, however, significant trunk capacity has been added in the form of fiber-optic cable and a domestic satellite system with 254 earth stations; cellular telephone service in metropolitan cities

India has satellite earth stations for international calling - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean Region); four gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai, New Delhi, Calcutta, and Chennai; submarine cables to Malaysia, UAE, Singapore, and Japan

The demand for the next 10 years is estimated to be 81.83 million lines (i.e. an addition of 67.40 million lines). Assuming that the Department of Telecommunication ('DOT') is able to grow at an annual rate of 12-13 percent through internal accruals alone, the projected demand gap is expected to range between 20 and 25 million lines in 2007. Investments to the tune of Rs 1,900 billion (US$ 53 billion) are required for the provision of these new connections.

Cell Phones:

In November 1994, 8 licenses were issued for Cellular Mobile Telephone service in 4 metro cities. Further 34 licenses to 14 companies for 18 telecom circles were issued since December, 1995. The service has since been started in all the 4 metro cities and selected cities in 18 Telecom Circles.

There were about 15.9 lakh cellular mobile telephone customers in the country as of December 30, 1999 and the number is expected to increase to 24.5 lakh (2.45 million) in 2000. The potential is immense. USA has about 94 million cell phones.

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