THERE IS good news for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) subscribers.
Now, they will enjoy prepaid service on basic phone and be able to control their budget just like in the case of prepaid mobile phone service.
The BSNL headquarters in Delhi has worked out a detailed plan in this regard and is expected to make a formal announcement by the month-end or early next month.
The basic objective, apart from providing a new service to its dwindling landline subscribers, is to get rid of all the rigmarole involved in issuing bills to subscribers and then realising the same from them.
The BSNL will first introduce the scheme for the PCO owners. As per the plan, BSNL’s local and the STD/ISD PCOs will be given only pre-paid connections in future. Thus, the question of their being defaulters and the department snapping connections for non-payment and then reconnecting them on payment will not arise. Besides the PCOs, the new scheme will also target low-end subscribers.
With this, the department may do away with its Sulabh scheme, under which one can get incoming facility on his phone without an outgoing facility for cheaper rental.
{{/usCountry}}With this, the department may do away with its Sulabh scheme, under which one can get incoming facility on his phone without an outgoing facility for cheaper rental.
{{/usCountry}}However, the prepaid service on the basic phone could be extended to the high-end users also in next phases.
Some private operators are already providing prepaid service on Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) connections.
As a natural corollary, the BSNL may do away with the monthly rental in respect of prepaid basic telephone connections. All that the prepaid subscribers will be required to do is to buy scratch cards of different denominations as they do in case of a prepaid mobile phone connection.
A senior BSNL officer here said that prepaid on fixed line telephone would solve billing problems and make management quite easy. He said the department would introduce many more add-on services on wired line phones to retain its existing customers and attract new ones. He said the BSNL was capable of providing SMS service on a landline phone, but certain irritants, including the higher SMS tariff, were coming in the way of commercial launch of the service.
The BSNL had fixed the tariff at the rate of Rs 1.20 per SMS.
“It is a bit high and its downward revision is being considered,” he said.