The number of broadband subscribers in the country crossed the 55.2 million mark at the end of December 2013 (including wireless), as per the latest TRAI data.
The number of wired broadband subscribers grew at just 1.9% as of November 2013 (YoY). The top five service providers own 82.36% of the total market share of broadband subscribers.
Of these, 40.27 million subscribers are mobile device users, 14.54 million are wired subscribers and 0.39 million use wireless services like wi-fi, wi-max, point-to-point radio and VSAT.
The Top 5 Broadband Service Providers
Service Provider |
Number of Subscribers (Mn) |
BSNL |
16.54 |
Bharti Airtel |
10.88 |
Reliance |
6.98 |
Idea |
5.87 |
Top 5 Wired Broadband Service Providers
Service Providers |
Subscribers (Mn) |
BSNL |
9.98 |
Bharti Airtel |
1.39 |
MTNL |
1.11 |
Hathway Cable |
0.36 |
Beam Telecom |
0.35 |
Top 5 Wireless Broadband Service Providers
Service Provider |
Subscribers (Mn) |
Bharti |
9.49 |
Reliance |
6.86 |
BSNL |
6.55 |
Idea |
5.86 |
Vodafone |
5.20 |
Despite the increase in broadband connections, a report by Akamai had found the adoption of high-speed broadband in India to be the lowest worldwide.
Mobile Number Portability Requests
TRAI also found that the number of mobile number portability requests was up marginally at the end of December.
Over 109.37 million requests were submitted to various service providers at the of 2013.
In February, the TRAI had reported that 86.83 million requests had been made for the same.
Maximum number of these requests came in from Northern and Western India from Rajasthan and Gujarat. This was followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in the Southern and Eastern zone.
Recommended Read: We have done a Terrible job in Broadband Penetration Says Trai Chairman