The CDMA-based mobile subscriber base of private operators touched 7.72 million during May this year, adding 307,000 customers over the previous month.

As per the latest subscription figures released by the Association of Basic Telecom Operators, the gross additions of CDMA-based mobile phones were pegged at 307,000 in May against 259,000 user additions in the previous month.

The overall telephony base of all these operators stood at 10.42 million, of which 1.2 million were wireline, 1.4 million WLL (fixed) and the rest were digital mobile users.

Reliance Infocomm, which operates its CDMA telephony services across 20 circles including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra, hiked its total subscriber base to 7.6 million in May against 7.2 million in April.

During the month, Tata Teleservices' base stood at 1.8 million users. Of this, 652,000 were fully mobile customers, 799,000 were customers of WLL (fixed) and the remaining wireline users.

The subscriber base of Bharti Telenet, which operates in Chennai, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, was at 678,000 during May 2004, including 650,000 wireline users and 27,566 WLL (fixed) users. Bharti does not offer the CDMA-based fully mobile service.

The total subscriber base of HFCL Infotel in Punjab and Shyam Telelink in Rajashan stood at 165,000 and 122,000, respectively.

While reports of the Cellular Operators Association of India's GSM subscription base are still awaited, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as many as 1.53 million subscribers were added during May which included 1.33 million mobile subscribers and about 0.20 million fixed line users.

By May-end, total fixed lines were at 43.18 million and mobile connections reached 36.3 million, taking the total telephony subscribers in the country to about 79.5 million, Trai said.