BSNL rules!

BANGALORE: Department of Telecom and the public sector companies continued to hold the largest share in the services market with BSNL leading the pack of Top 10 service providers with revenues of almost Rs 31,000 crore translating into a 20 percent growth over the last financial year.

According to the latest V&D 100 (2003—04), the ninth Indian Telecom Industry Report, the Tata Group had VSNL, Tata Teleservices, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra and Idea Cellular in the Top 10 service providers. But the biggest gainer was Reliance Infocomm with revenues of Rs 2,707 crore and occupying the fifth position. Bharti TeleVentures joined the billionaire club this year with revenues of Rs 5,003 crore and was placed at number three.

FY 2003-04 was a good year for the ISP industry as it has registered a 24 percent growth in terms of subscribers, reversing last year's negative growth of 2 percent. Revenues have grown by about 22 percent to reach Rs 1,573 crore ($341 million). It was a shuffling of positions at the top with BSNL replacing VSNL both in terms of revenue as well as subscribers. The Internet density in the country was estimated to be around 0.38 whereas broadband was around 0.018. TRAI has set up an ambitious target of 0.6 for Internet and 0.3 for broadband by 2005.

VSAT and radio trunking services together account for 0.7 percent of the total services industry. In terms of numbers, VSAT has a cumulative base of 27,870 as on March 31, 2004 and has added around 8,769 VSATs in FY 2003-04. The radio trunking base has come down and is presently hovering around 30,000 subscribers.