News: 500 mn phones for India by 2010

(PTI 24/05/2006) New Delhi - Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran today projected that India would have 500 million telephones by 2010, to facilitate which the government was making efforts to release 45 mhz of spectrum by the end of this year.

"The current subscribers base in the country is 150 million. The target for 2007, which has already been announced earlier, is 250 million new phone connections. Now we are setting a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010," he said at a press conference outlining achievements of his ministry in the last two years.

He added that DOT along with Ministry of Defence had already taken up a Rs 1,000 crore project to release 45 mhz of spectrum, a key resource for the mobile telephone industry, by the end of this year.y 2007, mobile telephony will cover 85 per cent of the country.

Maran said the government will also make spectrum available for the third generation mobile services (3G).