Tamil Nadu has the maximum number of urban Internet subscribers in India at nine percent of the total 231 million urban subscribers, PTI reported.
Tamil Nadu accounted for a 21 million urban internet subscriber base, with Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka trailing behind at 19.7 million, 19.6 million and 17 million users respectively, till March, 2016.
At the same time, 112 million of rural subscribers totals the net subscriber base in India to 342 million, as per government data segregated service area wise.
Uttar Pradesh East has the biggest share of rural internet subscribers at 11.2 million, with similar urban user figures too. Maharashtra follows with 9.7 million rural internet subscribers while Andhra trails behind by 9 million rural internet subscribers.
A network infrastructure project titled BharatNet (formerly National Optical Fibre Network project) interconnecting 2.5 lakh gram panchayats through optical fiber will offer broadband connectivity by all categories of service providers, to improve internet penetration in rural areas, will be deployed in three phases.
One lakh gram panchayats will be set by March 2017, while the 1.5 lakh panchayats will be spanned by December 2018.
The last phase will build a future proof network with fibre spanning districts and blocks, to be fully functional by 2023.
Recent reports on Akamai’s survey also revealed that the country’s average internet broadband speed is 3.5 Mbps, being ranked at 114 in on internet speed internationally for the period April-June 2016.
Among networks, Bharti Airtel leads the chart amongst total internet subscribers in the country, with 90.53 million internet subscribers, as conveyed by telecom minister Manoj Sinha in the Lok Sabha, last week.
Lagging behind are Vodafone India with 67.55 million subscribers, Idea Cellular with 44.03 million, Reliance Communications 39 million, BSNL 34 million, Aircel 22.44 million, Tata Docomo 21 million and Telenor 13 million. The launch of 4G services by Reliance Jio Infocomm this year is expected to further drive demand in rural India as network connectivity improves.
