The Hindu Business Line : BSNL to invest Rs 2,000 cr in broadband infrastructure

State-owned telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will invest about Rs 2,000 crore to augment its broadband infrastructure in urban and rural areas across the country. The company recently announced that it will upgrade its existing broadband subscribers getting 256 kbps speed to 2 Mbs at the existing tariff of Rs 250 a month. At present, BSNL has 8.2 lakh subscribers using the 256 kbps broadband connection across the country.

BSNL has also enhanced the downloading limits in Home 250 and Business 700 tariff plans to 1 GB and 4 GB from 400 MB and 2 GB respectively. The limits in other plans have also been enhanced. "With the increase in downloading limit, a Plan 250 customer will gain by Rs 840 per month for 1 GB limit and Business Plan 700 customer will get a benefit of Rs 2,400 per month for limits up to 4GB," said a BSNL release.

Downloading rates

BSNL has also decided to bring down downloading rates from 1.40 per MB to Rs 0.90 per MB in Home 250 plan. Downloading rates have also been lowered in other plans. Fixed monthly charges for ADSL modems have been reduced from Rs 100 to Rs 60 per month. The new tariff applicable with effect from December 1, 2006.

BSNL is also gearing up to deploy Wi-Max in the rural areas, where it is difficult to offer broadband connection over copper lines. The company will add 1,000 Wi-Max towers by the middle of next year, which will cover 20,000-30,000 villages. The Government has declared 2007 as the Year of Broadband and significant part of the target has to be met by BSNL.

BSNL is planning to add capacity for five million subscribers. Of this, 1.84 million lines will be in rural areas. Broadband service is currently available in 597 cities, which will be expanded to 1,000 cities and 20,000 villages.

BSNL blueprint

As per the blueprint prepared by BSNL, all Gram Panchayats will have broadband coverage by 2008. All secondary and higher secondary schools and all public health centres will be connected by December 2007. BSNL is already in the process of launching triple play (telephone, TV and Internet on a single line) services over broadband in Pune and subsequently in Chennai and Bangalore. BSNL will start online gaming services over broadband with monthly fixed charges ranging between Rs 100 and Rs 200.

BSNL is also launching location-based services in GSM segment. The company has also decided to offer future fixed line telephones instruments with latest features such as caller line identity (CLIP). BSNL has planned to replace all the existing landlines phones with CLIP instruments gradually.

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