Broadband
Sharkstream’s Tamil, Hindi broadband content now subscription driven
Sharkstream.com, UTV Interactive’s wholly owned subsidiary which offers broadband content for users in Singapore, has become a subscription service.
The service, priced at S$ 4.99 per month, features streaming programming in entertainment, drama, comedy and current affairs genres in Hindi and Tamil. Sharkstream also offers services in English, Malay and Mandarin which will remain free for the next two months, says Biren Ghose, CEO, UTV Interactive. Sharkstream was being launched with subscription driven services in only two languages so as to better understand the dynamics of high quality video acceptance over broadband in the East Asia region. After this the other language channels will also become subscription driven. Sharkstream was now the first paid broadband network in Asia, Ghose said.
The total broadband market in Singapore was roughly 200,000-strong Ghose said, and Sharkstream had a subscriber base of 45,000 to 50,000 (registered users using of the free service) making it the most-used broadband network. Ghose said he was expecting at least 5,000 to 10,000 subscribers to sign on in the beginning. They will be offered a menu card of five to seven content packages under different price heads, he added. The standard package is S$ 4.99 per month, S$11.99 for three months and S$23.99 annually.
Explaining why Singapore was an ideal location to offer broadband content, Ghose said in Asia, only South Korea was ahead in terms of being broadband-enabled.
Queried as to the minimum subscriber base required to cover operational costs, Ghose put the figure at 5,000. He pointed out that with this model having come into place, UTV Interactive could also offer its expertise to enable large content providers to set up their own platforms.
Broadband
Airtel and Jio surge ahead as Vodafone Idea and BSNL lose subscribers in December
India’s mobile base rises in December, but gains skewed towards the top two operators
NEW DELHI: India’s telecom market ended 2025 with a familiar split: the leaders sprinting ahead, the laggards slipping further. Fresh data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) show Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio adding millions of wireless users in December, while Vodafone Idea and state-run BSNL continued to bleed subscribers.
India’s overall telephone subscriber base, wireless and wireline, climbed to 1.306 billion in December 2025, a monthly rise of 0.66 per cent. Growth was driven largely by wireless, which accounted for the bulk of new additions.
Bharti Airtel added 5.42 million wireless subscribers during the month, the biggest net gain among operators. Reliance Jio followed with roughly 2.96 million additions. Their gains were spread across multiple licensed service areas, underscoring broad-based momentum.
The story was starkly different for their rivals. Vodafone Idea recorded a net loss of about 9.4 lakh wireless subscribers, extending a run of monthly erosion. BSNL also saw its base shrink by around 2.06 lakh users. Despite marginal gains in a few circles, the PSU’s overall wireless base continued to contract.
Taken together, net wireless (mobile) additions across operators stood at 7.23 million in December.
Wireless subscribers, including mobile and fixed wireless access (FWA), rose to 1.258 billion, a net monthly increase of 8.21 million. Wireless tele-density improved to 88.41 per cent, though the urban–rural divide remained wide: urban tele-density at 140.66 per cent versus 59.07 per cent in rural areas.
The wireline segment posted modest growth. Subscribers increased from 47.05 million in November to 47.37 million in December, a 0.68 per cent monthly rise. Urban areas continued to dominate, while rural wireline tele-density stayed low.
Broadband crossed a symbolic milestone, with total subscribers topping one billion to reach 1,007.35 million by December-end. Mobile wireless broadband remained the primary access mode. In fixed wireless access, 5G FWA subscribers grew 5.59 per cent month on month, signalling gradual uptake of next-generation services.
Yet churn remains high. TRAI noted that about 16.12 million subscribers submitted mobile number portability requests in December alone.
The scoreboard is clear: scale is breeding more scale at the top, while smaller players struggle to hold ground. In India’s brutally competitive telecom arena, December’s numbers show a market that is still growing, but not evenly—and momentum, for now, sits firmly with the frontrunners.
