The Hindu Business Line : BSNL mobile network bursting at the seams

THE demand for mobile phones in rural India is causing Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's cellular network to burst at its seams, with the subscriber base overshooting the installed capacity.

While the state-owned company has an installed capacity of 9.5 million cellular users, the subscriber base crossed 9.7 million as on end-April. Of the 24 circles where the company is offering cellular services under the brand name CellOne, the number of subscribers has overshot the network capacity in 16 circles.

BSNL officials said that the company is embarking on a major expansion plan with the addition of 25 million lines by the year-end and a similar addition next year. They said that the difference in the capacity and the subscriber base is not leading to congestion, since the call traffic is not too heavy. "In cellular technology, a single line is not always dedicated to any single subscriber, especially in areas where there is not much traffic. In Delhi, for instance, it will not be possible for any operator to have more subscribers than the installed capacity, but in the semi-urban and rural areas, where the traffic is not too high, there is scope to add more users than the given capacity," said a BSNL official.

Interestingly, the gap between the installed capacity and the number of actual subscribers is more striking in States such as Assam, Bihar and Orissa where private operators have not been able to make inroads. For instance, in Assam, against an installed capacity of 1.4-lakh lines, BSNL has a subscriber base of 1.5-lakh mobile users. In Gujarat and Karnataka, where private mobile operators are doing well, BSNL still has capacity left on its network.

But the biggest gap is in Tamil Nadu, which has 9.1 lakh CellOne users compared to the capacity of 8.2 lakh. BSNL officials said that there is a huge pent-up demand in the semi-urban and rural areas, which has not been tapped until now. BSNL has one of the widest cellular networks in the country.

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