India continues to register a decline in the fixed broadband subscription as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data reveals that India now has 19.07 million subscribers as of February. The data released by Trai on Monday highlights the telecom subscription data as of February 29, 2020. According to previously released Trai data for the month of January, India had a registered wireline broadband subscriber base of 19.08 million. In December, Trai's data revealed that India had 19.14 million wireline broadband subscribers.
BSNL Accounted for Major Decline in Wireline Broadband Subscription
The Trai data released on Monday highlights that state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued its position as the leading wireline service provider in India. BSNL accounted for 8.11 million wireline broadband subscribers as of February. However, the operator had 8.23 million wireline broadband subscribers as of January, 31. Similarly, BSNL had recorded a subscriber base of 8.39 million in December indicating that the operator lost over 2,80,000 subscribers in two months.
Bharti Airtel continued its position as the second largest fixed broadband service provider in India with a subscriber base of 2.45 million as of February. The operator had a registered wireline subscriber base 2.43 million in January and 2.42 million in December. The subscriber data reveals that the Airtel subscriber base increased by 30,000 in two in the wireline broadband segment with the majority of subscriber additions happening between January and February.
Atria Convergence Technologies maintained its position as the third largest wireline service provider in India with a subscriber base of 1.56 million. ACT Fibernet had a registered subscriber base of 1.54 million in January and 1.52 million in December.
JioFiber Continues to Maintain its Subscriber Base
According to the Trai data released on Monday, Hathway Cable and Datacom had a registered subscriber base of 0.94 million as of February, 29. The service provider had recorded a wireline subscriber base of 0.92 million in January and 0.90 million in December.
ACT Fibernet and Hathway Cable and Datacom are the only service providers to record 40,000 subscriber additions in two months.
Meanwhile, Reliance Jio Infocomm through its JioFiber service had a wireline subscriber base of 0.84 million as of February, 29. The service provider recorded an identical number of 0.84 million in January. However, it has to be noted that JioFiber had a registered subscriber base of 0.86 million as of December 31, 2019.
With the Indian government imposing a nationwide lockdown in the third week of March, it remains to be seen how the lockdown affected the wireline broadband subscriber base.
