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According to a report by research firms Maravedis and Tonse Telecom, the Indian telecom market is growing in leaps and bounds, and subscriber growth is outpacing the mobile operators despite network expansions. The Ministry of Telecom aims at enhancing telephone penetration, and is said to be confident of reaching its target of 25 crore (250 million) phones by 2007. Even having reached that target, the national teledensity wouldn't be more than 25 per cent.
The report on wireless market trends in the country also says WiMAX subscribers would reach to 1.3 crore (13 million) in India by 2012. "More than 70 per cent of Indian households do not have access to fixed wired telephone services," says Adlane Fellah, senior analyst, Maravedis. "Instead, customers have flocked to cellular phone carriers, which have built a tremendous infrastructure to provide service to more than 10 crore (100 million) customers."
The same trend is also predicted for broadband wireless Internet access services like WiMAX, which will provide high-speed data services over a wireless network.
"There is huge potential for broadband wireless Internet and VoIP services in India because there are still more than 600,000 villages with no basic communications services," mentioned Sridhar Pai, CEO of Tonse Telecom. "From a mere 15 lakh (1.5 million) connections today, the Indian broadband market will grow in the next six years to become potentially one of the top broadband wireless markets on the planet," added Sridhar.
Though Broadband services came into being in India in 2005, ADSL services currently cover 300 towns with around 1.5 million connections, but broadband wireless subscriber figures are still negligible.
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