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Hyderabad , Nov. 10

OVERWHELMED by the response to some of its recent promotional schemes that increased its subscriber base significantly, State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has extended some of the CellOne schemes, plans to expand its network to about 66 more towns and offer GPRS services. It also launched a free additional phone facility for its Internet surfing customers.

At a press conference here on Monday, the Chief General Manager, BSNL (AP Circle), Mr Sanjay Kumar, said the circle has also launched a host of other offers that includes bundling of handsets for as low as Rs 150 a month, the continuation of student scheme, wherein it has thus far mopped up about 60,000 customers, and reduced tariff structure for international calls.

Mr Kumar said in less than a year, BSNL has registered a subscriber base of 4,76,868 users, including 1,30,423 post-paid, and is breathing down the neck of the largest cellular services provider in Andhra Pradesh — AirTel. With these promotional schemes and bundled handsets offer, the company is confident that in AP, it will be able to surpass and become the number one cellular services provider. BSNL has teamed up with SBI Cards and ICICI to offer handsets of six major manufacturers.

These days, we were going slow on the WLL phone services, but gradually plan to expand the network to about 247 SDCA (short distance charging area) by next year. We will be able to reach more areas, which were hitherto difficult to cover with this technology, Mr Kumar explained.

Internet access will become easy as they can acquire another landline that can be used exclusively for this purpose, he said. This will be available for a monthly rental of Rs 399 and Rs 499 depending on the area the customer is located.

The overall landline subscriber base is estimated at about 32 lakh but this segment is actually witnessing a de-growth mainly due to many people opting for cellular services. Either way, we continue to consolidate our operations and plan to offer host of other value-added services to attract more customers, he said.

We are working towards the launch of GPRS-based services and will be able to offer them by March 2004. While increasing the cell sites across the States, including in major cities, we plan to add coverage in 66 more towns by the end of this year, Mr Kumar said.

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