India’s total broadband subscriber base rose to 149.75 million in March 2016 from 99.20 million in March 2015, according to TRAI data.

India’s wired broadband subscribers increased to 16.98 million in March 2016 from 15.52 million in March 2015.

The wireless broadband subscribers were 132.76 million against 83.66 million. India’s wireless broadband subscribers include users on phones and dongles, fixed wireless subscribers such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point-to-Point Radio and VSAT.

India’s Bharti Airtel’s wireless broadband subscriber base increased to 36.74 million from 20.58 million, while wired broadband was 1.74 million against 1.43 million.

BSNL’s wireless broadband subscriber base reached 10.41 million from 8.92 million, while wired broadband user base fell to 9.94 million from 9.96 million.

The top wired broadband service providers were BSNL with 9.94 million (9.96 million), Bharti Airtel with 1.74 million (1.43 million), MTNL with 1.11 million (1.14 million), Atria Convergence with 0.94 million (0.67 million) and YOU Broadband with 0.53 million (0.44 million).

The five wireless broadband service providers were Bharti Airtel with 36.74 million (20.58 million), Vodafone with 27.75 million (19.37 million), Idea Cellular with 22.92 million (14.52 million), Reliance Communications with 15.45 million (7.83 million) and BSNL with 10.41 million (8.92 million).

America cable

US Cable operators, including Comcast and Charter added 3.3 million new broadband subscribers in the 12 months from April 2015 through March 2016, said Strategy Analytics.

The total fixed broadband household penetration is nearly 80 percent in the U.S. Cable’s market share in broadband subscriptions has increased to more than 62 percent, with Fiber remaining flat at 23 percent and DSL declining to 15 percent of US subscriptions.

Verizon lost 10,000 broadband subscribers and AT&T added only 5,000.

Strategy Analytics says fixed broadband is continuing to grow in the US, and not being replaced by mobile broadband.

US based cable operators are driving the growth with increased speeds and multi-play bundles.

In 2015, Comcast accounted for 44 percent of new subscribers and the companies forming the New Charter made up another 47 percent of new subscribers.

“The telecom operators haven’t been able to shake off the losses of DSL subscribers, but we expect to see increased fiber deployments in the coming quarters, which should help AT&T and Verizon return to growth,” said Jason Blackwell, director of the Service Provider Strategies service (SPS) at Strategy Analytics.

Strategy Analytics said Wi-Fi is playing an important role in the investment plans of service providers.

US-based cable operators have rolled out Wi-Fi networks as part of their mobility strategy, and these deployments will continue to grow. Charter has pledged to deploy an additional 300,000 hotspots as a condition of the recently closed merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

Wi-Fi will allow cable operators to more effectively compete for quad-play customers without the expense of creating and managing a mobile network. Combined with MVNO relationships, Wi-Fi can create a compelling service offer, making the cable companies more competitive with the traditional mobile operators.

Baburajan K