India has a total of 472.72 million wireless Internet subscribers out of which a little over 30 per cent are in rural areas, the Lok Sabha was informed.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said as on March 31 this year, there are 472.72 million wireless Internet subscribers and out of these 328.83 million are in urban areas and 143.89 -- which comes to 30.44 per cent -- are in rural areas.

He also said that mobile Internet penetration in the country has seen "major changes" in the last four years.

The minister told the House that the government is providing connectvity to uncovered villages of the North East by errecting 7,000 telecom towers to provide connectivity to over 8,600 villages.