India crosses 100-mn mobile user mark. |
Private mobile telecom operators today announced a plan to establish an office of ombudsman to address consumer grievances. |
CV Ramachandran, director-general, Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), said, "The proposed consumer forum is expected to come up in a couple of months and it will solve problems legally and quickly. To an extent the redressal cell will be similar to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) cell and will act independently." |
All private telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Infocomm, have voluntarily put themselves under the jurisdiction of the ombudsman. State-owned telecom companies BSNL and MTNL, however, will not be covered by it. |
At a meeting held to mark India's joining the 100 million mobile users club, Minister of Communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran said, "Trai will come up with a new policy to keep a check on fake mobile subscribers through the destination local register (DLR) and find the position of the subscriber. At present, Trai verifies subscribers through the visitor location register (VLR) and home location register (HLR)". |
"This verification process is expected to cut down cases of fake subscribers", added Maran. |
India has become the fifth country to join the elite club with over 100 million subscribers "" the others being China, which has 376.27 million mobile users, the USA with 208.17 million, Russia with 126.15 million and Japan with 90.21 million, as on December 2005. |
GSM subscribers in India numbered about 75 million at the end of May 2006. |
Maran said the increase in the number of mobile subscribers was on account of the combined impact of continually declining tariffs and the fact that service and handsets were becoming increasingly affordable. |
"With the current growth rate, the number of subscribers is expected to reach 250 million by the end of 2007 and touch the 500 million mark by 2010" added Maran. |