Vijayawada: Telugu states, Andhra Pradesh rank 2nd in internet users' list

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh service area that covers both the Telugu states has the second highest internet subscribers of both broadband and narrowband, next only to Maharashtra among all other states in the country.

Internet subscribers are also on the rise in the Andhra Pradesh service area over the years. As per the data accessed from the union ministry of IT and communications, internet subscribers in Andhra Pradesh reached an all-time high of 43.78 million till September this year. Maharashtra that tops all states had internet subscribers of 46.11million. After Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu has the highest internet subscribers with 40.71 million. Internet subscribers are steadily increasing since the last few years in the state. As per data, internet users are 24.87 million, 31.80 million, 37.61 million in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively in the Andhra Pradesh circle.

Government collects data on internet users and traffic on a regular basis. At the end of September 2018, the number of internet subscribers, both broadband and narrowband put together, stood at 560.01 million across all states in the country.

The number of rural subscribers was 194.07 million while the number of subscribers in urban areas was 365.94 million. “Internet traffic has also witnessed phenomenal growth, touching highest ever data usage of 22.43 million terabytes during 2017 (January-December). Of this, fixed broadband traffic was 2.78 million terabytes and mobile broadband traffic was 19.65 million terabytes,” union minister of state in ministry of IT and communications, Manoj Sinha told the Lok Sabha recently.

There are also efforts launched by the union government to provide internet to rural areas with last mile connectivity which will also increase the overall internet users tally. Towards achieving the goal of providing broadband for all citizens, the union government is implementing the flagship BharatNet project in a phased manner for providing broadband connectivity to all 2,50,000 gram panchayats of the country. Bharatnet is an essential pillar of the Digital India programme of the union government. It envisages access to broadband service through Wi-Fi in all gram panchayats in the country for ensuring last mile connectivity. In each gram panchayat, five Access Points (APs) are envisaged to be provided, of which three APs are for government institutions and two APs for public places. In addition to the wi-fi hotspots provisioned in BharatNet, government proposes to set up 25,000 public wi-fi hotspot infrastructure at BSNL’s telephone exchanges in rural areas.