The Hindu Business Line : 80 m mobile lines in 3 years — BSNL plans ventures with gear makers

BHARAT Sanchar Nigam Ltd is planning to form join ventures with equipment manufacturers for its massive rollout of 80 million cellular lines over the next three years.

The State-owned company also said that it had started routing international long distance calls to 23 countries on its own network with bilateral agreements with six international carriers.

Addressing a two-day conference of the Chief General Managers (CGMs), Mr A.K. Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL, said the corporation plans to issue free cordless and call line identification (CLI) phones to high-end customers and make similar facility for others on marginal rent basis.

"Powers have been delegated to circles to provide CLI-based feature phones to corporate customers free-of-cost. The feature phones can also be provided to other categories of customers on nominal payment of Rs 20 per month"

The BSNL chairman said that company has set a number of targets including providing 100 per cent rural telephony by the end of 2006, cellular services in all Tehsil and block headquarters and strict adherence to the three-year expansion of the network by another 80 million, adding 6.6 million Internet and six million broadband connections.

"Hundred per cent rural telephony has to be achieved by the next year end and the entire rural waiting list is also to be wiped out by that time", Mr Sinha noted.

The two-day conference of the CGMs is meant for a self-appraisal and stock taking of targets. The CGMs from all the 42-telecom circles of India and senior officials of the corporate office including the directors are attending the meet.

Some of the other new initiatives listed by Mr Sinha included GSM-based mobile public call offices, appointing a brand ambassador, modifying the commission structure for PCOs and introducing new value-added services in the network.

"Last year, BSNL earned Rs 50 crore from value-added services. We are looking forward to 3G networks and provision of content-based services", he said.

On the manufacturing plans, Mr Sinha said, "BSNL was planning to enter new production facilities and forming joint ventures. Manufacture of SIM cards, ADSL modems/DSLAM and 5 pair cables, optic fibre cable accessories, patch panel antenna, drop wire and jointing kits have been added to the product range.

"Tower production has been commenced and the CDMA handset and fixed wireless terminals will also be manufactured."

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80 m mobile lines in 3 years — BSNL plans ventures with gear makers

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