Our Bureau

New Delhi , March 22

THE average per minute charge for mobile service declined by 58 per cent to Rs 1.20 per minute during the quarter ended December in comparison to Rs 1.90 during the previous quarter.

According to the performance indicators for the quarter October-December 2004 launched by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the subscriber base of Internet users has increased by six per cent during the quarter. The number of subscribers has increased from 5.14 million to 5.45 million in December 2004.

While broadband users base reached 46,638, Internet telephony recorded a usage of 43 million minutes. Average minutes of use per month for dial up Internet subscribers was of the order of 275 minutes and the average revenue per user for Internet service was Rs 167.

The gross subscriber base of the fixed and mobile services reached 92.88 million at the end of the quarter from 86.86 million in September 2004, an increase of around 7 per cent. The growth on annual basis is more than 31 per cent.

The subscribers of fixed service (fixed line and WLL-F) increased from 43.87 million to 44.87 million and that for mobile services (GSM + CDMA) from 43 million to 48 million.

The number of village public telephones added was 13,152 making a cumulative total of 5,37,238 VPTs in the country. The number of public call offices increased to 25,31,312, a growth of 11.64 per cent.

The number of `always-on' high-speed Internet subscribers has reached 6.54 lakhs, showing a growth of 108 per cent.

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