Mobile telephone subscribers have overtaken fixed-line users in the urban pockets of eight telecom circles, including Delhi, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

While the fixed-line user base has stagnated or declined over the past few years, the number of mobile telephone subscribers has grown 170 per cent in 2003 with the entry of CDMA-based service providers like Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices and the launch of national cellular services by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. The number of mobile telephone subscribers swelled by 17 million in 2003.

However, if fixed-line subscribers in the rural parts of these eight states are added, mobile phone users will take some more time to catch up. Mobile telecom operators are aggressively wooing city folk to sign up but they are nowhere near BSNL's fixed-line network, which covers huge swathes of the countryside.

Mobile telephone users in Delhi and Mumbai have long overtaken fixed-line subscribers. Cities in states like Bihar and Himachal Pradesh will soon be able to claim the same.

Analysts point out that since most circles have over five mobile telecom operators each -- against one fixed-line operator -- mobile telephony is bound to grow.

Even basic service providers like Reliance and Tata Teleservices are rolling out wireless networks where they had initially planned to set up fixed-line grids. Wireless is quick and cheap: a fixed-line telephone costs nearly Rs 25,000 to set up, wireless costs a fifth of this.

The world over, telecom is becoming wireless. According to the United States-based research group, Yankees, the number of mobile subscribers in the world will overtake the number of wireline phones by 2006. India may beat that with just 14 million more mobile telephone users needed to overtake its 42 million fixed-line users.