After it emerged that the prepaid segment is contributing positively on the ARPU and MoU front, a new revelation has come out in Trai’s latest figures released for March wherein the subscriber base of fixedline services is shown to be on growing side. This trend has long been eluding fixedline operators for many years.

March saw the subscribe base of fixedline services reach 37.96 million as compared to 37.73 million in February, an increase of  0.23 million. State-run PSUs BSNL (117,004 increase) and MTNL (59,057) both managed to increase their fixedline subscriber base. This fact should be heartening for BSNL which has seen regular erosion of its fixedline subscriber base for the last few years.

Broadband base too increased by 0.37 million to record 6.22 million subscribers at the end of March 2009.

Total wireless subscriber base reached 391.76 million with 15.64 million new subscribers added in March as compared to 13.82 million added in February.

India’s total telecom subscriber base scaled to 429.72 million with tele-density touching the 36.98 percent mark.