BSNL broadband services in rural areas
DECLARING Y-2007 as the ?Year of Broadband?, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would now focus its attention on expanding broadband services in rural areas to bring 1,000 cities/towns & 20,000 villages under the broadband map. Currently, the largest internet service provider in the country, BSNL would provide broadband upto 2 MB at Rs 250 per month.
DECLARING Y-2007 as the ‘Year of Broadband’, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would now focus its attention on expanding broadband services in rural areas to bring 1,000 cities/towns & 20,000 villages under the broadband map. Currently, the largest internet service provider in the country, BSNL would provide broadband upto 2 MB at Rs 250 per month.
“We have increased the speed by almost eight times whereas download has been enhanced by 2.5 times at half the cost,” BSNL chairman-cum-managing director Anil K Sinha said here on Wednesday during a short visit to the State capital.
Having a market share of 44 per cent, the existing capacity of BSNL is one million ports and the service is available in 597 cities & towns. Sinha said that BSNL has an ambitious plan to add 5 million ports capacity to its existing network. “Out of this, about 1.84 million ports are for rural areas,” he added.
Under the new plan, all existing 8.2 lakh customers are also being automatically upgraded for speed upto 2 Mbps depending upon technically feasibility. BSNL is in the process of launching broadband access through WiMax technology in about 1,000 block headquarters with support from the government, which would cover an area of 20 to 25-km in each block.
The State-owned telecom major will also start on-line gaming services over broadband under two categories – Standard and Premium packages with fixed charges of Rs 100 and Rs 200 respectively. Making broadband services affordable, the BSNL has decided to provide broadband with bandwidth of 2 Mbps to home and business plans, which is currently at 256 Kbps.
Sinha said the downloading limits in Home 250 and Business 700 plans have been enhanced from 400 MB and 2 GB to 1 GB and 4 GB respectively. “The limits in other plans have suitably been enhanced and with the increase of downloading limit, a Plan 250 customer will get the benefits of Rs 840 per month for 1 GB limit and Business Plan 700 customer will be benefited by Rs 700,” he said.
Sinha said BSNL would also launch location-based services in GSM segment in the current month. BSNL circle head and CGM R P Hans briefed the gathering on other services and offers to be provided by the telecom major in the new year.
BSNL’s bouquet of offers in Y-2007:
1 Speed up broadband upto 2 MB @ Rs 250 pm.
2 10,000 urban and 20,000 rural exchanges to be broadband-enabled.
3 Telephone exchanges with more than 1,000 lines will be broadband-enabled.
4 All gram panchayats, public health centres, educational institutions to be covered under broadband by 2008.
5 To start online gaming services with fixed charges of Rs 100 & Rs 200 pm.
6 Bring down per MB downloading rates from Rs 1.40/MB to 90 paise/MB in the home plan.
7 Reduce fixed monthly charges of ADSL modems from Rs 100 to Rs 60 pm.
8 All landline telephone instruments will have CLIP facility in future.
9 Mobile prepaid recharge voucher of Rs 561 & Rs 1,124 shall have 100 per cent talk value till January 27.
10 ‘Anant’ plan will be true mobile lifetime.
11 Top-up vouchers converted into Super Top-up vouchers (upto January 31).
12 Time limit increased to one month for prepaid voucher of Rs 168.
13 Landline connection — urban area @ Rs 200 and rural @ Rs 100, with equal worth of the Indian Telephone Cards respectively
for a month (from January 5).