The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Monday strongly refuted the allegation that Chinese mobile service providers were serving 1.5 times more subscribers per MHz than India. They claimed that on a “like-to-like” basis, Indian mobile service providers  were actually serving 300 per cent more subscribers per MHz than their Chinese counterparts.

 “The contentions by vested interests have suppressed the extremely vital and important factor that China had introduced mobile services seven years before India. On a like-to-like basis, Indian mobile service providers are actually serving 300 per cent more subscribers per MHz than China,” COAI Director General T V Ramachandran said.

He pointed out that for the same benchmark period of 11 years of service -  December 1999 for China and December 2006 for India — Indian mobile service providers were serving 3.36 million subscribers per MHz.
In the same period, China’s mobile service providers were serving only 0.85 million subscribers per MHz.
“Subscribers per MHz is a criterion that is reflective of the growth of a network. Hence, comparisons using this parameter must take into consideration similar network maturity and other demographic variants”, COAI said.
The same points have been raised by him in a letter to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman Nripendra Misra too.

He observed, “if one were to consider China’s own growth figures, it must be first appreciated that the country commenced mobile services in 1988. It could be seen that China had 0.85 million subscribers per MHz in 1999 and 4.2 million subscribers per MHz in 2002. It was only after almost 20 years of service that China achieved 8.5 million subscribers per MHz in 2007”.

He added that vested interests were attempting to mislead the public by projecting that China was serving more people per MHz.