The Indian telecom sector

India started off with just 54.63 million telephones in 2003 and a very poor teledensity of barely5.11 percent now has the world's second largest telecommunications network.  In 1999 the government had set itself a modest target of achieving 4 per cent rural teledensity by 2010.  At a present figure of about 26.4 percent, we have far surpassed the target.