India to be 2nd largest wireless network worldwide by next month.n

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Mar. 25 – Come April and India will surpass the United States to become the second largest subscriber base in mobile telephony. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday announced that on an average, India with 250 million subscribers adds eight-nine million subscribers per month, while the United States which has 256 million subscribers adds two-three million subscribers per month, at this rate, India will for the first time surpass the United States by the beginning of April.

The report also said that a total of 8.5 million telephone connections were added in February, taking the total number of telephone connections to 290 million at the end of February, or teledensity to 25 percent. The total number of telecom subscribers is expected to reach the 300 million mark by the beginning of April. China in comparison which already has a telecom subscriber base of 540.5 million, averages six-seven million mobile subscriber additions a month

The TRAI report also says that as mobile subscribers grow, numbers of wireline subscribers are slowly falling from 41.5 million subscribers in March 2006 to 39.2 million subscribers in January 2008 to 39.1 million this February, clearly showing India’s preference to stay mobile.