Communications in India
From Free net encyclopedia
Telephone - Land lines: 48.93 million (2005)
Telephones - Mobile users: 81.1 million (January 2006)
Teledensity: 11.43% (2005)
Telephone system: The telecommunications system in India was thrown open to private players in the 1990s. The country is divided into multiple zones, called circles (roughly along state boundaries) and the four largest cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) are circles in their own right. The government owned BSNL runs local, mobile and long distance telephone services all over the country (except in the Delhi and Mumbai circles). Several private companies give competition to BSNL/MTNL in different circles.
Landlines: Landline service in India is primarily run by BSNL (MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai). There are other companies too, such as Touchtel and Tata Teleservices which do not have a pan-Indian presence. Reliance Infocomm has licences to provide services all over the country, but have started off only with CDMA mobile and fixed mobile services (where the phone is not wired to the exchange, but is used like a fixed line at home or office).
Landlines are now facing competition from mobile telephones (GSM and CDMA based). Mobile phone connections are readily available from private companies for relatively low prices. The competition has forced the government owned monopoly BSNL (MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai) to become more efficient. The landline network quality has improved and landline connections are now usually available on demand, even in high density urban areas. In addition to the government monopoly, there are several private landline telephone companies, notably Reliance and Tata Teleservices and Bharti (which runs the landline company Touchtel and the mobile company Airtel).
Long distance service is now more comprehensive and cheaper, carried primarily on fiber optic cable. There are several private long distance companies, the government owned BSNL continues to use its monopoly against them. However, the competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are now comparable in price to calls across the continental United States.
The STD codes within India are:
Abohar 01634 Agartala 0381 Agra 0562 Ahmedabad 079 Ahmednagar 0241 Aizwal 0389 Ajmer 0145 Akola 0724 Aligarh 0571 Allahabad 0532 Alleppey 0477 Alwar 0144 Ambala 0171 Amritsar 0183 Anand (V.V. Nagar) 02692 Asansol 0341 Aurangabad 0242
Banglore 080 Bareilly 0581 Bharatpur 0265 Bharuch 02642 Bhatinda 0164 Bhavnagar 0278 Bhiwani 01664 Bhillai 0788 Bhopal 0755 Bhubaneshwar 0674 Bhuj 02832 Bikaner 0151 Bilaspur 07752 Bakaro 06542 Bongaigaon 03664 Burdwan 0342 Burnpur 03448
Calicut 0495 Cannanore 0497 Chandigarh 0172 Chennai 044 Chikamangalur 08262 Chinglepet 04114 Chittor 08572 Coimbatore 0422 Cochin 0484 Coochbehar 03582 Cudappah 08562 Cuttack 0671
Darbanga 06272 Darjeeling 0354 Devangiri 08192 Dehra Dun 0135 Delhi 011 Dhanbad 0326 Dharwar 0836 Dibrugarh 0373 Dimapur 03862 Dindigal 0451 Dispur 0361 Durgapur 0343 Dwarka 02892
Ernakulam 0484 Erode 0424 Etah 05742
Faizabad 05278 Faridabad 0129 Ferozepur 01632
Gandhinagar 02712 Gangtok 03592 Gaya 0631 Godhra 02672 Gorakhpur 0551 Guntur 0863 Gurgaon 0124 Guwahati 0361 Gwalior 0751
Hapur 0122 Hardwar 0133 Hissar 01662 Hubli 0836 Hyderabad 040
Imphal 03852 Indore 0731 Itanagar 03781
Jabalpur 0761 Jaipur 0141 Jaisalmer 02992 Jallandhar 0181 Jalgaon 0257 Jalpaiguri 03561 Jalna 02482 Jalore 02973 Jamkhandi 08353 Jammu 0191 Jam Nagar 0288 Jamshedpur 0657 Jhansi 0510 Jodhpur 0291 Jorhat 0376 Junagarh 0285
Kadayanallur 04633
Kakinada 0884 Kalimpong 03552 Kalol 02764 Kalpakkam 04117 Kanchipuram 04112 Kanpur 0512 Kanyakumari 04653 Karimnagar 08722 Karnal 0184 Kavarathy 04866 Kharagpur 03222 Kodalkanal 04542 Kohima 0370 Kolar 08152 Kolhapur 0231 Kolkata 033 kollam 0474 Kota 0744 Kottayam 0481 Kurnool 08518
Lucknow 0522 Ludhiana 0161
Machilipatnam 08672 Madikeri 08272 Madural Ellisnaga 0452 Mahabalipuram 04113 Malda 03512 Manglore 0824 Mathura 0565 Meerut 0121 Minicoy Islands 048672 Modi Nagar 01232 Moradabad 0591 Mumbai 022 Mussoorie 0135632 Muzzafarnagar 0131 Muzzafarpur 0621 Mysore 0821
Nagpur 0712 Nainital 05942 Nasik 0253 Nellore 0861 New Delhi 011 Neyveli 04148 Noida 0120
Ooty 0423
Palakkad 0491
Panipat 01742
Panjim 0832
Pathankot 0186
Patiala 0175
Patna 0612
Pilibhit 05882
Pondicherry 0413
Porbandar 0286
Port Blair 03192
Pune 020
Puri 06752
Raibareilly 0535 Raipur (MP) 0771 Rajamundry 0883 Rajapalayam 04563 Rajkot 0281 Ranchi 0651 Rewari 01274 Rohtak 01262 Roorkee 01332 Rourkela 0661
Sagar 07582 Saharanpur 0132 Salem 0427 Samastipur 06274 Sangrur 01672
Satyavedu 08576 Shillong 0364 Shimla 0177 Silchar 03842 Siliguri 0353 Sirsa 01666 Sivakasi 04560 Solapur 0217 Sonepat 01264 Sri Kalahasthi 08574
Srinagar 0194 Surat 0261
Thanjavur 04362 Tinsukia 0374 Tiruchirapally 0431 Tirunelveli 0462 Tirupati 08574 Trichur 0487 Trivendrum 0471 Tumkur 0816 Tuticorin 0461
Udaipur 0294 Udipi 08252 Ujjain 0734 Unnao 05144
Varansi 0542 Vellore 0416 Vijayawada 0866 Vishakhapatnam 0891 Vishwanathapura 08119
Warangal 08712 Wardha 07152
Yamunanagar 01732
Mobile Cellular: The mobile service has seen phenomenal growth since 2000. In fact, in September, 2004 the number of mobile phone connections have crossed fixed-line connections. Currently there are an estimated 89 million mobile phone users in India compared to 45 million fixed line subscribers. Earlier there were rules that allowed only up to 4 mobile phone companies in each circle (one is always BSNL) but that rule has now been removed, resulting in some circles having as many as 7 mobile operators. India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band. Recent operators also operate in the 1800 MHz band. The dominant players are Airtel (almost all over India), Hutch, Idea cellular (from the Tata group) and BSNL/MTNL. There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers.
A recent entrant has been the Reliance group, which originally only had licences for landline service. Loopholes in the regulations allowed it to set up mobile operations across India using CDMA technology. Since it hadn't paid the high fees for mobile licences, it could offer calls at very low rates. This resulted in high competition with the established mobile players, with lower prices and increased features all around. Eventually the telecommunications regulator (TRAI) stepped in and levelled the playing field, but the low prices have stayed.
Dialling System: On landlines, calls within cities are considered local calls. Calls to other cities (beyond 200km) are considered long distance calls and are metered according to distance. For local calls, you just dial the local number. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g. For calling Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX). For international calls, you would dial "00" and the country code+area code+number. The country code for India is 91.
On mobile phones, calls within a circle are considered local, even if they are intra-city. For calling mobiles, you dial the 10 digit mobile number 9XXXX-YYYYY. When dialling any landlines, you dial the entire number, including the area code with the 0 prefix.
If you were calling a mobile phone in the same circle from a land line, you would dial the 10 digit mobile number (9XXXX-YYYYY). If you were calling a mobile number in another circle, it would be a long distance call, with a zero prefix (0-9XXXX-YYYYY).
There is a conversion process underway to make all numbers in India 10 digits long.
International:
- Nine satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region).
- Nine gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad and Ernakulam.
- 4 submarine cables :
- LOCOM linking Chennai to Penang.
- Indo-UAE-Gulf cable linking Mumbai to Al Fujayrah, UAE.
- India-SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-2 with landing sites at Cochin and Mumbai.
- Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with a landing site at Mumbai (2000).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68 (1998)
Radios: 116 million (1997)
Television terrestrial broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82 stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1 kW of power) (1997)
Televisions: 100 million (2004) Source: Business Today issue dated November 21, 2004)
In India, only the government owned Doordarshan (Door = Distant = Tele, Darshan == Vision) is allowed to broadcast terrestrial television signals. It initially had one major National channel (also known as DD1) and a Metro channel in some of the larger cities (also known as DD2).
Satellite/Cable television took off during the first Gulf War with CNN. There are no regulations against ownership of dish antennas, or operation of cable television systems, which led to an explosion of viewership and channels, let by the STAR TV group and Zee TV. Initially restricted to music and entertainment channels, viewership grew, giving rise to several channels in regional languages and many in the national language, Hindi. The main news channels available were CNN and BBC World. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan. Some of the notable ones are Aaj Tak (means Till Today, run by the India Today group) and Star News, initially run by the NDTV group and their charismatic lead anchor, Prannoy Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India).
Here is a reasonably comprehensive List of Indian television stations.
Internet Users: 50,600,000 (December 2005) Source: Internet World Stats
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & Hosts: 86,571 (2004) Source: CIA World FactBook
Country code (Top-level domain): IN
- See also : India
- See also : India Cellphone Numbering