The country’s mobile user base is set to fall for the first time in eight years this calendar with many people likely to give up their second or third connections due to rising cost of ownership, experts said. In fact, the country’s active mobile user base – or, the actual number of customers using mobile services on a network may have shrunk in 2019 itself, after 10 years, going by the data collated by the regulator. The total active mobile user base had slumped 4% year on year as of end October at 981 million from 1.02 billion a year earlier, as per the latest data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). And the trend is slated to continue in 2020. A combination of higher tariffs, costlier minimum recharge plans and rising appetite for bundled 4G offers has raised the cost of owning multiple mobile connections, industry executives and analysts said.