India's wireless mobile user base up by 11.5% in 2016: TRAI

Total landline subscribers in India fell over four% year-on-year to 24 million, while mobile users rose 11.5% to over 1.12 billion as on December 2016, according to data by telecom regulator Trai.

India's total telecom subscriber base touched 1.15 billion as on December 2016, over 11% higher than the previous year, as per the "yearly telecom services performance indicator report" by Trai.

Of the total telephony services users, 683.14 million were urban subscribers and 468.64 million were rural subscribers. Internet subscribers in the country totalled 391.5 million, as on December 31, 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report said.

Incidentally, government is rolling out the ambitious BharatNet project to provide 100 Mbps broadband connectivity to all gram panchayats in the country. The project aims to provide affordable broadband services to citizens and institutions in rural and remote areas, in partnership with states and the private sector.

By June 30, as many as one lakh gram panchayats under Phase-I are estimated to have been covered by optical fibre network. Meanwhile, according to Trai report, the industry's gross revenue during 2016 stood at Rs 2,79,591 crore, up 7.2% over the previous year.