The Hindu Business Line : MTNL launches Net telephony

Mr R.S.P. Sinha, Chairman & Managing Director, MTNL (right), and Dr Kailash Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh Optifibre Ltd, at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday.

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Aug. 31 Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd launched of Netfone, its Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), in Mumbai.

This facility that allows the company’s broadband customers to make VoIP calls through an instrument that can be used like a normal telephone instead of having to dial through their personal computers.

The service is being offered in association with Aksh Optifibre.

Netfone call to regular telephones in the US, UK, Canada and Australia costs as low as Re 1 a minute. The tariff for calls to Japan and Malaysia will be Rs. 2 a minute. This service is available to 150 countries.

With this launch, MTNL would be providing Internet, VOIP and IPTV (already launched) simultaneously to its customers through a single telephone connection, said Mr Kailash Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh Optifibre.

The capacity is for 50,000 VoIP customers, the target being fixed at 10,000 for this year and the rest by the next year. “Our target is a subscriber base of 1 lakh by the end of the next fiscal,” said Mr. Choudhari.

Apart from broadband customers, MTNL Public Call Officer holders can also avail themselves of this facility. For broadband customers, an Analog Telephone Adaptor connected to the ADSL modem allows for international calls. Prepaid calls can be purchased in denominations of Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

There are various tariff plans available for this service, including a Rs 400-per-month-plan that provides 800 minutes of free calls and, thereafter, calls at 10 paise per minute. Registration and provisioning for the Netfone service starts from September 1 and September 11 .

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