Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh has more mobile subscriptions than people and the state is India’s fourth largest mobile phone market in terms of subscribers, which were a total of 7.48 crore mobile connections as on February 2016. Andhra Pradesh’s residuary population is around 4.95 crore. Experts say that the growth is fuelled by several factors including increasing subscription in the rural and interiors pockets of the state. The growth is stemming from multiple connections in the urban and semi-urban areas. India, which is the world’s largest mobile phone market in terms of subscribers, had a total of 1,026 million mobile connection as on February 2016, according to data from Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.
The country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, accounts for the largest number of mobile subscribers in the country followed by Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, AP and Bihar and these four states together account for almost half of the total wireless connections. Nowadays the parents are purchasing mobile phones for their children and sometimes the children are also committing cyber crimes by sending abusive videos and messages.
The emergence of new technology and the increasing internet access through a smart and android devises are also the reasons for the increasing mobile subscribers in the state, says DCP (Crimes) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy, who deals the cyber crimes in Vizag. The private telecom operators say that pricing is major factor in influencing the rate of subscriptions. The latest mobile phones with multiple features are available at low prices (Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000) and the SIM cards of the various mobile networks are also available at the minimum price of Rs 50.
Services of the networks are also at affordable prices hence students and others subscribe to more than two mobile networks and use two mobile phones, they added. The improvement of infrastructure by BSNL and few other private telecom operators in rural pockets and tribal hamlets in the state has also pushed the mobile connections and even the left-wing-extremists are using mobile services of BSNL in Vizag Agency said a senior police officer with the intelligence wing.
