Article Broadband: Yet To Pick Pace

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Broadband subscription has just reached 13.79 mn in March 2012 from 16.9 mn in March 2012 (Source: Trai). Its growth has been abysmally low; in terms of subscribers it had a growth rate of 14.8% in the last one year. In terms of revenues, broadband market in India is pegged at `6,971 in the fiscal year 2011-12.

Key Players

The most preferred technology used by internet service providers to provide broadband in India is Digital Subscriber line (DSL) and it constitutes 85.12%. This is followed by cable modem technology (5.75%), ethernet LAN (5.09%), wireless 3.48%, leased lines (0.32%), fiber (0.23%), and others (0.01%).

Bharti airtel ended the year with non-voice revenue contributing over 50% of the total revenue. During the fiscal 2011-12, the company launched online sales as a channel for DSL acquisition and has also doubled the speeds to a minimum speed of 2 Mbps for all customers in the top 14 cities and to 1 Mbps in the balance cities with an objective of enhancing customer experience. airtel took the lead in launching 4G services in India starting with Kolkata and subsequently in Bengaluru. Besides this, it has plans to launch 4G in Karnataka, Maharashtra (including Mumbai), Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, and Kerala.

Broadband: Yet To Pick Pace