Airtel records identical subscriber fall across 26 telecom circles

In what appears as more than a coincidence, all 26 telecom circles carrier Bharti Airtel’s showed an identical fall in subscribers at 1.3 percent in May over April this year.

According to its latest data, even the overall fall nationally for Airtel stood at 1.3 percent.

For every circle to have exactly the same extent of fall is curious, IANS reported.

At an all-India level, Airtel subscribers were down in May by 46.13 lakh, or 1.3 percent. This figure has been repeated across all of the carriers circles.

In Andhra Pradesh, number of subscribers went down by 4.08 lakh (1.3 percent), Assam 1.24 lakh (1.3 percent), Bihar 4.74 lakh (1.3 percent), Delhi 2.11 lakh (1.3 percent), Gujarat 1.58 lakh (1.3 percent), Haryana 72,299 (1.3 percent), Himachal Pradesh 42,845 (1.3 percent), J&K 71,755 (1.3 percent), Karnataka 3.94 lakh (1.3 percent), Kerala 88,995 (1.3 percent), Kolkata 75,521 (1.3 percent), Madhya Pradesh 2 lakh (1.3 percent), Maharashtra 2.54 lakh (1.3 percent), Mumbai 1.25 lakh (1.3 percent), Northeast 71,181 (1.3 percent), Odisha 1.46 lakh (1.3 percent), Punjab 1.5 lakh (1.3 percent), Rajasthan 2.84 lakh (1.3 percent), Tamil Nadu 3.55 lakh (1.3 percent), UP East 4.71 lakh (1.3 percent, UP West 2.30 lakh (1.3 percent) and West Bengal 2.01 lakh (1.3 percent).

Home Location Register (HLR) is a central database which has the details of each mobile phone subscriber that is authorised to use the GSM core network.

These HLRs store the details of every SIM card issued by the service provider.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) utilises this data from HLRs as well while assessing the number of subscribers a carrier has.

Each SIM has a unique identifier called International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), which is the key to each HLR record.

Subscriber numbers reported by the service providers is the difference between the numbers of IMSI registered in service provider’s HLR and the sum of other figures.

The Indian telecom market presented a picture of sharp contrast in May with Bharti Airtel losing a staggering 46.13 lakh wireless subscribers even as rival Reliance Jio added 35.54 lakh mobile users, according to data from telecom regulator Trai.

Overall, the Indian mobile market shed 62.7 lakh users in May.

Airtel’s lost 46.13 lakh mobile users and ended the month with a subscriber base of 34.8 crore, according to the data released by the TRAI for the month of May. Moneycontrol