Lists of Broadband Subscribers in India

Although, the growth in Mobile telephony has been stupendous in India over past 5-6 years, same cannot be said about broadband. The growth in broadband subscribers has been at snail’s pace. Mobile telephony spread across length and breadth of India, thanks to cheap handsets and even cheaper call rates. Unfortunately, broadband could not reach the masses due to higher prices, lower speeds, infrastructural issues among other reasons. Even today, India’s broadband density is miniscule 1 percent with majority of subscribers in Urban cities only!

Bringing Internet connectivity to masses, especially in rural areas, is one of the key goals and Indian Government envisages to cover 2,50,000 village panchayats with broadband by 2012. Currently, only about 97,548 villages are covered with broadband.

In a recent press release, Government has released State-wise broadband subscribers including urban and rural areas Circle-wise connections.

Sl. No	State/Telecom Circle	Broadband subscribers (As on 30.11.2010)
1	Andaman & Nicobar	5045
2	Andhra Pradesh	992222
3	Assam	67098
4	Bihar (including Jharkhand)	146148
5	Delhi*	972552
6	Gujarat	656041
7	Haryana	235201
8	Himachal Pradesh	57422
9	Jammu & Kashmir	46650
10	Karnataka	1129392
11	Kerala	699429
12	Maharashtra (including Mumbai, Goa)	1847013
13	Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh)	418091
14	North East**	37605
15	Orissa	172405
16	Punjab	523508
17	Rajasthan	333165
18	Tamil Nadu (including Chennai)	1331956
19	Uttar Pradesh (including Uttarakhand)	568936
20	West Bengal (including Kolkata)	497971
	TOTAL	10737850

Highlights

• Maharashtra leads broadband subscriber list with over 18 Lakhs subscribers followed by Tamil Nadu (13.3 L) and Karnataka (11.3 L)
• Andaman & Nicobar Islands have least subscriber base with only 5k subscribers
• Entire North-East region has about 37 k subscribers
• Kerala, even though being one of the smallest states has about 7 lakh subscribers and has maximum broadband density among states