Sunday, January 2 2005 17:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Over 1.4 crore new telephone connections, about 88 per cent of them mobile, were added in the eight months of this fiscal (April-November 2004), taking the number of connections in the country to 9.05 crore.

With this, Tele-density in the country moved up to 8.37 per cent by November-end from seven per cent in March 2004, according to the latest figures released by the Department of Telecom (DoT) today (Jan 2, 2005).

More than 19 lakh connections were added in the month of November 2004 alone.

As per the statistics, the number of mobile phones (including WLL-M) as on November 30, 2004, stood at 4.60 crore while the fixed connections stood at 4.45 crore.

"Private sector has played a major role by accounting for more than 76 per cent of the expansion during these eight months. The private sector has so far provided 4.07 crore phones as on November 30, 2004, which is 45 per cent of the total phones in the country," DoT said.

It said the public sector BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) has plans for providing 25 lakh CDMA (WLL) telephones in rural areas. "Of these, ten lakh phones shall be provided before March 2005 and the remaining 15 lakh shall be provided during next year up to December 2005," DoT said.

Further, it said the commissioning of GSM network of 1.5 crore mobile phones was in progress. "Of these, 40 lakh phones shall be provided by March next year and the remaining shall be provided during 2005-06.

"In the field of broadband services, it is being planned that about 50,000 subscribers shall be provided connectivity by March 2005," DoT said.