Idea Cellular has expanded its telecom network to 260,000 sites in India with 50 percent sites dedicated for mobile broadband services.

Idea Cellular, which is considering a merger with rival Vodafone shortly, has added nearly 50,000 broadband sites over the last 12 months.

Idea’s 4G coverage has reached some villages with a population of 1,000. Idea has also recorded 4G coverage in certain rural parts of the country where population is below 100 people.

Idea Cellular’s mobile broadband coverage reached 5,888 census towns and nearly 105,755 villages, reaching 45 percent population.

Tanu Sharma, associate director, Corporates, India Ratings, in a research note said that Vodafone and Idea Cellular reported subscriber loss in July 2017 for the first time in the last 12 months. Bharti also reported 70 percent lower subscriber additions.

Idea Cellular’s market share fell to 16.6 percent in June 2017 from 17.2 percent in August 2016 – one month before the launch of Reliance Jio. Vodafone and Idea Cellular reported negative subscriber additions in most top circles.

Idea reported rural subscriber loss in June 2017. Bharti leads rural subscriber market share. Vodafone and Idea have higher share of rural subscribers in overall mix (~55 percent).

Data usage of Idea Cellular customers fell from 1,331 MB per subscriber in June 2016 to 957 MB per user in June 2017. Data ARPU of Idea Cellular dropped to Rs 110 from Rs 162.

Idea Cellular on Thursday said it has set up optical fibre network of approx. 150,000 route kms to strengthen its wireless broadband services. Idea Cellular earlier announced Capex (capital expenditure) of Rs 6,000 crore in the current financial year.

“Achieving a footprint of 2.6 lakh sites is a major milestone in Idea’s network growth journey. With aggressive Capex infusion 1 lakh sites have been erected by Idea in the last 2 years, and we will continue to invest in expanding our wireless broadband capacity to enable the company’s Digital Idea plans,” said Anil Tandan, chief technology officer of Idea Cellular.

“Idea is fast transitioning from being a pure telecom services provider to an integrated digital services provider,” said Ambrish Jain, deputy managing director of Idea Cellular.