Communications in India

The Indian Government acquired the EVS EM computers from the Soviet Union, which were used in large companies and research laboratories. Tata Consultancy Services — established in 1968 by the Tata Group — were the country's largest software producers during the 1960s.The 'microchip revolution' of the 1980s had convinced both Indira Gandhi and her successor Rajiv Gandhi that electronics and telecommunications were vital to India's growth and development.MTNL underwent technological improvements. Between 1986-1987, the Indian government embarked upon the creation of three wide-area computer networking schemes: INDONET (intended to serve the IBM mainframes in India), NICNET (the network for India's National Informatics Centre), and the academic research oriented Education and Research Network (ERNET). The Indian economy underwent economic reforms in 1991, leading to a new era of globalization and international economic integration. Economic growth of over 6% annually was seen between 1993-2002. The economic reforms were driven in part by significant the internet usage in India. The new administration under Atal Bihari Vajpayee—which placed the development of Information Technology among its top five priorities— formed the Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development. Internet gained a foothold in India by 1996.India had a total of 60,000,000 Internet users—comprising 6.0% of the country's population—as of 2008. As of 2008, 4,010,000 people in India also had access to broadband Internet— making it the 18th largest country in the world in terms of broadband Internet users. India had a total of 49,750,000 telephone lines in use by 2008.In the fixed line arena, BSNL and MTNL are the incumbents in their respective areas of operation and continue to enjoy the dominant service provider status in the domain of fixed line services.BSNL controls 79% of fixed line share in the country. In the mobile telephony sector, Bharti Airtel controls 21.4% subscriber base followed by Reliance Communications with 20.3%, BSNL with 18.6%, Vodafone with 14.7% subscriber base as of June 2005.India had a total of 233,620,000 mobile phone connections by 2008.Total fixed-line and wireless subscribers reached 325.78 million as of June, 2008.