New Delhi, Mar 14 (UNI) The rapid expansion of the telecom sector continued with an addition of about 6.3 million phones in the number of telecom subscribers during the month of February 2007 - an average daily addition of more than two lakh lines.

As a result, the total number of telephones in the country crossed more than 203 million, as against a total of 196.7 million as on January 31, this year, a growth of 3.2 per cent.

Thus the country has now become the third largest telecommunication network in the world only next to China and the US.

The overall teledensity rose to 18 per cent in February 2007 from 17.45 per cent in January 2007 and from 12.18 per cent as on February 28, 2006.

During the month, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi added more than three lakh subscribers each in the GSM segment. Almost the entire growth registered during the month was in the wireless segment - with GSM contributing 4.88 million and CDMA contributing 1.35 million, respectively.

There was a marginal increase of about 67 thousand subscribers in the fixed line segment. In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of 2.9 per cent with a net addition of 1.25 million subscribers.

Under Bharat Nirman Programme, out of the 66,822 villages, so far 39,741 villages have been provided with Village Public Telephones (VPTs).

The remaining 27,081 villages are to be covered by November this year.

UNI