New Delhi, May 24 (PTI): Telecom subscribers in the country are growing but the government and the telecom regulator have different figures for how fast the number is rising.

The figures released by the department of telecom for April said the sector added 4.9 million subscribers, taking the total number of telephones in the country to more than 211.7 million compared with 146.20 million during April 2006 — a growth of 44.8 per cent between May 2006 and April 2007.

Teledensity improved to 18.7 per cent, DoT said. The department of telecom and Trai agree only on this figure.

Trai said the sector added 5.15 million wireless subscribers in April, taking total telephone users to 212.02 million and tele-density to 18.74 per cent.

The government said at the end of March about 2.29 million broadband connections were provided.

Broadband connections by public sector service providers have covered 962 cities, it added.

Trai said total broadband connections in the country has reached 2.43 million by the end of April with an addition of 0.13 million during April compared with 0.09 million added during March, a growth of 5.65 per cent.

Telecom department officials claim the figures released are accurate as the survey takes into account each and every addition and subtraction of subscribers till the last count.

The telecom department said the GSM segment has also shown an increase of 4.13 million during the month of April.

The CDMA segment has registered an increase of 1.01 million, while the fixed-line segment has declined by 0.23 million.

The telecom regulator said in the fixed-line segment, the subscriber base increased by 0.04 million in April to reach 40.82 million.