The Indigenous 5G Test bed project funded by Department of Telecommunications has reached its final stages. The project which costs around Rs 224 crore, is likely to be completed by 31 December’2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G User Equipment (UEs) and network equipment by 5G stakeholders developing 5G Products/Services/Use cases, including indigenous Start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country.
At the same time, the total telephone connections in India rose to 118.9 crore in September 2021 from 93 crore in March 2014, with a growth of 28 percent in the said period. The number of mobile connections reached to 1165.97 million in September 2021. The tele-density which was 75.23% in March 2014 has reached 86.89 percent in September 2021.
The urban telephone connections rose to 66 crores in September 2021 from 55 crore in March 2014, a growth of 20% while the growth in rural telephone connections was 40%, which is double of urban increase, rising from 38 crore in March 2014 to 53 crores in September 2021. The rural tele-density jumped from 44 percent in March 2014 to 59 percent in September 2021.
The Internet connections jumped from 25.15 crore in March 2014 to 83.37 crore in June 2021, registering a growth of 231 percent. The broadband connections rose from 6.1 crore in March 2014 to 79 crores in June 2021, growing by about 1200 percent. The average revenue realization per subscriber per GB wireless data reduced to Rs. 9.8 in June 2021 from Rs. 268.97 in December 2014, a reduction of more than 96 percent. The average monthly data consumption per wireless data subscriber increased by 22605 percent to 14 GB in June 2021 from 61.66 MB in March 2014.
The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in telecom sector rose by around 150 percent between 2014-2021 from Rs. 62,386 Crore in 2002 to 2014 to Rs. 1,55,353 crores during 2014-2021.
