Communications in India

Telephones - main lines in use: 44 million (September 2004) Source: Business Today, November 21, 2004 issue

Telephones - mobile cellular: 45 million (September 2004) Source: Business Today, November 21, 2004 issue

Cellphone teledensity up to 2.8% at the end of December 2003 up from 0.33% in 2000.

Telephone system: The telecommunications system in India was thrown open to private players in the 1990s. The country is divided into multiple zones, called circles (roughly along state boundaries) and the four largest cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkota and Chennai) are circles in their own right. The government owned BSNL runs local, mobile and long distance telephone services all over the country (except in the Delhi and Mumbai circles). Several private companies give competition to BSNL/MTNL in different circles.

Landlines: Landline service in India is primarily run by BSNL (MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai). There are other companies too, such as Touchtel and Tata Teleservices which do not have a pan-Indian presence. Reliance Infocomm has licences to provide services all over the country, but have started off only with CDMA mobile and fixed mobile services (where the phone is not wired to the exchange, but is used like a fixed line at home or office).

Landlines are now facing competition from mobile telephones (GSM and CDMA based). Mobile phone connections are readily available from private companies for relatively low prices. The competition has forced the government owned monopoly BSNL (MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai) to become more efficient. The landline network quality has improved and landline connections are now usually available on demand, even in high density urban areas. In addition to the government monopoly, there are several private landline telephone companies, notably Reliance and Tata Teleservices and Bharti (which runs the landline company Touchtel and the mobile company Airtel).

Long distance service is now more comprehensive and cheaper, carried primarily on fiber optic cable. There are several private long distance companies, the government owned BSNL continues to use its monopoly against them. However, the competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are now comparable in price to calls across the continental United States.

Mobile Cellular: The mobile service has seen phenomenal growth since 2000. In fact, in September, 2004 the number of mobile phone connections have crossed fixed-line connections. Currently there are an estimated 50 million mobile phone users in India compared to 45 million fixed line subscribers. The rules allow for up to 4 mobile phone companies in each circle (one is always BSNL). India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900Mhz band. Recent operators also operate in the 1800 Mhz band. The dominant players are Airtel (almost all over India), Hutch, Idea cellular (from the Tata group) and BSNL/MTNL. There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers. A recent entrant has been the Reliance group, which originally only had licences for landline service. Loopholes in the regulations allowed it to set up mobile operations across India using CDMA technology. Since it hadn't paid the high fees for mobile licences, it could offer calls at very low rates. This resulted in high competition with the established mobile players, with lower prices and increased features all around. Eventually the telecommunications regulator (TRAI) stepped in and levelled the playing field, but the low prices have stayed.

Dialling System: On landlines, calls within cities are considered local calls. Calls to other cities (beyond 200km) are considered long distance calls and are metered according to distance. For local calls, you just dial the local number. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g. For calling Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX). For international calls, you would dial "00" and the country code+area code+number. The country code for India is 91.

On mobile phones, calls within a circle are considered local, even if they are intra-city. For calling mobiles, you dial the 10 digit mobile number 9XXXX-YYYYY. When dialling any landlines, you dial the entire number, including the area code with the 0 prefix.

If you were calling a mobile phone in the same circle from a land line, you would dial the 10 digit mobile number (9XXXX-YYYYY). If you were calling a mobile number in another circle, it would be a long distance call, with a zero prefix (0-9XXXX-YYYYY).

There is a conversion process underway to make all numbers in India 10 digits long.

International: satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region); nine gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad and Ernakulam; 4 submarine cables - LOCOM linking Chennai to Penang; Indo-UAE-Gulf cable linking Mumbai to Al Fujayrah, UAE; India-SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-2 with landing sites at Cochin and Mumbai; Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with landing site at Mumbai (2000)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68 (1998)

Radios: 116 million (1997)

Television terrestrial broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82 stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1 kW of power) (1997)

Televisions: 100 million (2004) Source: Business Today issue dated November 21, 2004)

In India, only the government owned Doordarshan (Door = Distant = Tele, Darshan == Vision) is allowed to broadcast terrestrial television signals. It initially had one major National channel (also known as DD1) and a Metro channel in some of the larger cities (also known as DD2).

Satellite/Cable television took off during the first Gulf War with CNN. There are no regulations against ownership of dish antennas, or operation of cable television systems, which led to an explosion of viewership and channels, let by the Star TV group and Zee TV. Initially restricted to music and entertainment channels, viewership grew, giving rise to several channels in regional languages and many in the national language, Hindi. The main news channels available were CNN and BBC World. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan. Some of the notable ones are Aaj Tak (means Till Today, run by the India Today group) and Star News, initially run by the NDTV group and their charismatic lead anchor, Prannoy Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India).

Here is a reasonably comprehensive List of Indian television stations.

Internet users: 18,482,000

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 218 (2003)

Country code (Top-level domain): IN

See also : India