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HYDERABAD, Feb. 8

FROM the next financial year, the telecommunications department will reorient its strategy by providing 30 per cent wire services and 60 per cent wireless services, according to Mr V. Surya Sriramulu, Chief General Manager of BSNL, AP Telecom.

At an interactive session with corporate and individual customers on Thursday, he said that cellular services are poised to register a quantum jump spreading into urban and rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and the targeted clients would be those in the agricultural and aquaculture sectors.

Mr Sriramulu said that Motorola would be providing the equipment for cellular services by BSNL, which would be in place by August this year.

Bandwidth is also being expanded to offer better services and circuits of leased lines would be so abundantly available that professionals such as lawyers and doctors could make use of them.

In Hyderabad, optical fibre link facilities - which have been introduced in a few pockets - would be expanded to enable offices and individual houses. In addition, broadband radio service would be introduced for better communications.

Telephone service charges and rentals are bound to come down and the change in scenario is due to the expanded ability to manufacture components in large quantities at cheaper rates and the exposure of the department to competition, he said.

Mr J. Balakrishna, Principal General Manager, said that in terms of telephone density, AP had occupied the second place in the country with three million connections. The first placed belongs to Maharashtra.

In leased circuits, the growth has been more than 150 per cent. The broadband fibre optic link would also be provided in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Guntur.

Mr K. Ramaiah, General Manager (Customer Service), said that the department would soon come out with a Web site for payment of bills through the Internet.

For cellular phones, the charges would be the same as those of landlines, the incoming calls would be free and there would be no airtime charges.

Mr S. Tirumalai, President of the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said that telecom has been accepted as critical infrastructure that impacts the efficiency, competitiveness and growth of every other industry.

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