trai · Reporting month 2026-08
India telecom subscriptions: August 2026 figures and how to read them
Source release: · Review: 2026-10-08
A dated review of TRAI's August 2026 subscription figures, distinguishing telephone connections, broadband subscriptions and machine-to-machine coverage. This is an independent explanation, not a measure of unique people or network quality.
Verified figures and units
Telephone subscriptions: wireless and wireline
1,360.7 million
Source page 1
Net telephone additions during August
6.42 million
Source page 1
Broadband subscriptions including M2M
1,101.21 million
Source page 1
Broadband subscriptions excluding M2M
1,010.28 million
Source page 1
Urban telephone subscriptions
802.28 million
Source page 1
Rural telephone subscriptions
558.43 million
Source page 1
Mobile number portability requests during August
15.83 million
Source page 1
Monthly growth in broadband subscriptions
0.61 percent
Source page 2
Connections are not unique people
The headline measures subscriptions, not the number of individual residents using a telephone. A person or business can maintain multiple connections, and the report separately identifies machine-to-machine coverage. Do not present the connection count as the number of customers a seller could reach. Likewise, a subscription total is not evidence of speed, reliability, affordability or customer satisfaction. For decisions about a particular location, investigate coverage and service conditions separately rather than inferring them from a national total.
Compare matching measures
Keep the including-M2M and excluding-M2M broadband series separate. Comparing one definition this month with another definition last month would mix different populations and produce a misleading trend. Broadband and telephone subscriptions also overlap, so their totals should not be added together as if they represented separate people. The portability figure describes requests during the month; it is not a count of new subscriptions, completed switches or new users. Urban and rural figures describe connections classified by the source, not a ranking of local network performance.
Reporting month, release date and source review
This page covers the end of August 2026, although the source was released in September. A later publication date does not turn these figures into September data. SIRF checked the selected figures against the opening table and the broadband section of the official PDF. The archived file is identified by a checksum so the edition used for this review can be distinguished from a later correction. The selected metrics are a summary, not a replacement for the complete report or its detailed annexures. Any future correction should be reviewed explicitly rather than silently overwriting this edition.
Methodology and limitations
- TRAI identifies telecom service providers as the source of the reported data. This page does not independently audit their submissions or claim that every connection was active throughout the month.
- The source's wireless telephone definition includes mobile connections, M2M connections and fixed wireless access. Totals must be interpreted with the coverage stated for each metric rather than assuming every connection is a handset.
- Figures are shown in millions at the source's displayed precision. Independently rounded components can differ slightly from displayed totals; do not manufacture extra decimal places or force rounded values to balance.
Source and verification
Figures attributed to TRAI. SIRF is independent and is not the issuing authority.
Read the original sourceArchived source SHA-256: 5da23c7d46e8bf994fcc358589d3bff4e553a202a3cf1c64373dcad077efe1a3