Telephones - main lines in use
49.75 million (2005)
Telephones - mobile cellular
69.193 million (2006)
Telephone system
general assessment: recent deregulation and liberalization of telecommunications
laws and policies have prompted rapid growth; local and long distance
service provided throughout all regions of the country, with services
primarily concentrated in the urban areas; steady improvement is
taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public
investors, but telephone density remains low at about 10 for each
100 persons nationwide and only 1 per 100 persons in rural areas;
there remains a national waiting list of over 1.7 million; fastest
growth is in cellular service with modest growth in fixed lines
domestic: expansion of domestic service, although still weak in
rural areas, resulted from increased competition and dramatic reductions
in price led in large part by wireless service; mobile cellular
service (both CDMA and GSM) introduced in 1994 and organized nationwide
into four metropolitan cities and 19 telecom circles each with about
three private service providers and one state-owned service provider;
in recent years significant trunk capacity added in the form of
fiber-optic cable and one of the world's largest domestic satellite
systems, the Indian National Satellite system (INSAT), with 6 satellites
supporting 33,000 very small aperture terminals (VSAT)
international: country code - 91; satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat
(Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region); 9 gateway exchanges
operating from Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai
(Madras), Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, and Ernakulam;
6 submarine cables, including Sea-Me-We-3 with landing sites at
Cochin and Mumbai (Bombay), Sea-Me-We-4 with landing site at Chennai,
Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with landing site at Mumbai
(Bombay), South Africa - Far East (SAFE) with landing site at Cochin,
i2icn linking to Singapore with landing sites at Mumbai (Bombay)
and Chennai (Madras), and Tata Indicom linking Singapore and Chennai
(Madras), provide a significant increase in the bandwidth available
for both voice and data traffic (2006)
Radio broadcast stations
AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68 (1998)
