India joins the 100-m mobile club 
The Hindu Business Line, June 9, 2006

New Delhi: India has become the fifth country in the world to have more than 100 million mobile subscribers. While China has the highest number of mobile users with 404 million subscribers, India crossed the 100-million milestone at the end of May when operators added close to 4.2 million new mobile users. 

The US with 185 million subscribers, Japan with 150 million and Russia with 140 million mobile users are the other countries ahead of India. Germany, Italy, the UK and Brazil are the countries behind India in the top-10 list. In terms of percentage growth rate, India is the fastest growing market, and in terms of absolute numbers, India is the second fastest with 4 million new users being added every month on an average. While China added close to 24 million new mobile users since January 2006, Indian operators have added close to 20 million during the first six months of this year. 

500-million target 

The Government has now set a target of reaching 500 million telephone subscribers by 2010. Announcing the achievement, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communication and IT, said that Government policies have resulted in declining tariffs and improving affordability of service and handsets. 

User verification 

Asked about claims from industry quarters of the growth numbers being exaggerated, Mr Maran said that the Government has asked the operators to verify each and every subscriber. He also said that the operators have been asked to report subscribers' numbers based on a new system called Visitor Location Record, which will count only those connections that are being actively used. At present, mobile operators are using the Home Location Record system, whereby the numbers are based on the SIM cards sold in the market. 

Ombudsman planned 

On the occasion, private cellular operators announced setting up of an ombudsman to address the problems faced by the subscribers. The modalities of setting up the ombudsman will be worked out by the operators in the next two to three months. Mr Maran said that the ombudsman should be set up in different parts of the country so that consumers need not come to Delhi or other metros to lodge their complaints.