New Delhi, Oct 26, 2024, IANS

New Delhi, Oct 26 (IANS) The total number of broadband subscribers in India increased from 946.19 million in July to 949.21 million at the end of August, a monthly growth rate of 0.32 per cent, according to the government data on Saturday. Total wireless subscribers decreased from 1,169.61 million at the end of July to 1,163.83 million at the end of August, thereby registering a monthly decline rate of 0.49 per cent, according to a Ministry of Communications statement. Wireless subscription in urban areas decreased from 635.46 million to 633.21 million and wireless subscription in rural areas also decreased from 534.15 million to 530.63 million during the same period. Monthly decline rate of urban and rural wireless subscription was 0.35 per cent and 0.66 per cent, respectively. The private access service providers held 92 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 8 per cent. In the month of August, 14.66 million subscribers submitted their requests for mobile number portability (MNP). With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 1,011.13 million at the end of July to 1,025.78 million at the end of August, since the implementation of MNP, the data showed. The number of machine-to-machine (M2M) cellular mobile connections increased from 53.67 million at the end of July to 54.07 million at the end of August. Bharti Airtel has the highest number of M2M cellular mobile connections at 28.41 million with a market share of 52.54 per cent, according to the data. The number of total telephone subscribers in India decreased from 1,205.17 million to 1,200.07 million, showing a monthly decline rate of 0.42 per cent. Meanwhile, wireline subscribers increased from 35.56 million to 36.23 million with a monthly rate of growth 1.90 per cent. The share of urban and rural subscribers in total wireline subscribers were 92.09 per cent and 7.91 per cent, respectively. BSNL, MTNL and APSFL held 24.57 per cent of the wireline market share.