NEW DELHI: There was a sizeable increase in the number of broadband subscribers to 74.31 million by August-end as compared to 70.81 million subscribers by July-end, thus showing a monthly growth of 4.95 per cent.
 
The largest growth rate in broadband was in the mobile devices users (phones and dongles) which went up by 6.29 per cent from 55.34 million to 58.82 million. The growth in fixed wireless subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point-to-Point Radio & VSAT) was 2.75 per cent from 430,000 to 440,000. The growth in wired subscribers was a mere 0.06 per cent from 15.04 million to 15.05 million.
 
The top five wired broadband service providers at the end of August were BSNL (9.97million), Bharti Airtel (1.39 million), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (1.13 million), Beam Telecom (0.40 million) and YOU Broadband (0.41 million).
 
The top five wireless broadband service providers at August-end were Bharti Airtel (15.14 million), Vodafone (12.51 million), Idea Cellular (9.85 million), BSNL (8.35 million) and Reliance Communications Group (6.53 million).