Odisha fifth from bottom in tele-density

Bhubaneswar: Odisha ranked fifth from the bottom in terms of tele-density with a mere 76.15 per cent subscribers base as compared to 87.45 per cent national average. This is based on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) subscription data as on January 31, 2020.

Of the states, nine have less tele-density as compared to national average. Notably, Delhi service area recorded the maximum tele-density of 280.11 and Bihar service area of minimum tele-density of 53.07 at the end of January this year.

Overall mobile subscriber base in Odisha witnessed an increase of nearly 1.59 lakh subscribers in the month of January taking the total mobile users in Odisha to nearly 3.32 crores. As per the TRAI data for January 2020, Reliance Jio leads the market with 1,20,82,110 subscribers followed by Bharti Airtel with 1,16,18,841 subscribers, BSNL with 61,00,003 and Vodafone Idea with 3370789 subscribers in the state. Only Jio and BSNL were able to add subscribers in the month while both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost thousands of subscribers in the state during same period, revealed the report. While Jio added over 2.8 lakh subscribers in January and BSNL added over 76000 subscribers, Bharti Airtel lost over 1.37 lakh subscribers followed by Vodafone Idea which lost over 59000 subscribers in the month.

On the other hand, the overall tele-density in India declined from 88.56 at the end of Dec-19 to 87.45 at the end of Jan 2020. The urban tele-density declined from 156.26 at the end of Dec-19 to 144.16 at the end of Jan. Rural tele-density increased from 56.67 at the end of Dec-19 to 58.03 at the end of Jan-20. The share of rural and urban subscribers in total number of telephone subscribers at the end of Jan-20 was 43.69% and 56.31% respectively.

Similarly, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,172.44 million at the end of Dec-19 to 1,177.02 million at the end of Jan-20, thereby showing a monthly increase rate of 0.39%. Urban telephone subscription increased from 662.45 million at the end of Dec-19 to 662.75 million at the end of Jan-20, and the rural subscription increased from 509.99 million to 514.27 million during the same period. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscription were 0.05% and 0.84% respectively during the month of Jan-20.