The government informed the parliament that despite consolidation in the telecom sector in the last decade, there is sufficient competition. To this end, Devusinh Chauhan, Minister of State for Communications said that there are four telecom service providers (TSPs) including one public sector undertaking (BSNL and MTNL) are present in each of the 22 Licensed Service Area (LSA) of the country.
As per the minister, consolidation in the telecom sector has in turn resulted in optimum utilisation of resources including radio spectrum. Supplementing his statement, Chauhan mentioned that there has been substantial increase in the number of telecom towers, network coverage and subscriber base.
Detailing the data, Chauhan informed that as per the data, the mobile networks in India are serving more than 1.15 billion subscribers, as on December 31, 2021. Nearly, 98 per cent of the population is covered with 4G network. Further, there has been a significant reduction in tariffs for voice and data since 2016 which also indicates the presence of adequate competition in the telecom sector.
