India's mobile connections at 687.71 million

NEW DELHI, INDIA: India added 17.10 million mobile subscribers in September, taking the total number of cellular users to 687.71 million as on Sep 30, official data revealed Thursday.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the wireless phone user base grew 2.55 percent to 687.71 million in September, from 670.60 million in the previous month.

With this, the total telephone subscriber base in the country, both wireless and wireline, touched 723.28 million. The total telephone density reached 60.99 percent.

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The growth in India's wireless phone category was led by state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited with an addition of 2.28 million users, 13.36 percent of the net addition in September, taking its user base to 78.3 million.

Other telecom players such as Uninor and Tata Teleservices performed remarkably with the addition of 2.2 million users each, taking their total subscriber base to 11.2 million and 79 million respectively.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications also added two million users each, taking the total subscriber base to 143.3 million and 117.3 million respectively.

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According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 2.08 percent from 10.08 million in August to 10.29 million in September 2010.

However, the wireline segment declined further from 35.77 million in August-2010 to 35.57 million at the end of September 2010.

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