The total number of broadband internet subscribers in India has increased to 391.50 million at the end of December 2016 from 367.48 million in September 2016, registering a quarterly growth rate of 6.54 percent.
Out of the total 391.50 million subscribers, 21.51 million are wired internet subscribers, and 370 million are wireless internet customers. The Internet subscriber base of 391.50 million at the end of December 2016 is comprised of Broadband Internet subscriber base of 236.09 million and Narrowband Internet subscriber base of 155.41 million.
The broadband Internet subscriber base grew by 22.77 percent from 192.30 Million at the end of September 2016 to 236.09 million at the end of December 2016. On the other hand, the narrowband Internet subscriber base declined by 11.29 percent from 175.18 million at the end of September 2016 to 155.41 million at the end of December 2016.
Coming to the DTH department, a total number of 899 private satellite TV channels have been permitted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for uplinking only/ downlinking/uplinking, as on December 31, 2016.
During the quarter ending December 2016, there were 287 pay channels as reported by 47 broadcasters as compared to 281 pay channels reported in the previous quarter. The 287 pay channels include 208 SD pay TV channels and 79 HD Pay TV channels. During the quarter ending December 2016, as per the reporting, six new pay channels were commenced. No pay channel was converted into FTA & no channel was reported to be discontinued.
Since its inception in the year 2003, Indian DTH service has seen phenomenal growth, says TRAI. DTH has attained a registered pay subscriber base of around 97.05 million (including 62.65 million active subscribers). As on December 2016, there are six pay DTH service providers. This is beside the viewership of the free DTH services of Doordarshan.
That said, both the broadband and DTH segments have added a decent number of subscribers, according to the data released by TRAI. The data also states that the total mobile subscribers have reached 1,151.78 Million from the previous 1,074.24 million in the quarter ended in September 2016.
