The Hindu Business Line : BSNL online triple play broadband service in Pune

New Services
Multi-play is a value added service offered under the franchisee agreement with MKCL under partnership with Divinet.
Next locations that would come under the multi-play would be Bangalore and Chennai.

Pune March 15 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has formally launched online triple play broadband service in Pune. BSNL would be offering its customers voice, data and video.

The beta testing of the multi-play services has been going on in the city for the past two months. This is a value added service offered by BSNL under the franchisee agreement with Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL) under partnership with Divinet. This project has also been supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under the National Development of Globally Competitive `Triple Play' broadband technology.

Talking to presspersons after the launch, Mr A. K. Sinha, CMD of BSNL, said the next locations, which would come under the multi-play would be Bangalore and Chennai, after which it would be rolled out in Hyderabad and Kolkata. He said the roll out would be completed within the next six months and pointed out that it would also depend on the content provider.

More investment

Talks have already concluded at Bangalore and is in the process at other locations. He noted that 2007 had been declared as the `Year of Broadband', and BSNL is all set to invest Rs 2,000 crore for strengthening the infrastructure. Mr Sinha also noted that currently broadband is available in 800 cities and towns, and has a subscriber base of over nine lakhs. Beyond the current calendar year, it would be covering 1,100 towns.

He said the roll out plan was to deploy five million additional wireline broadband connections, including two million in rural areas covering about 1,000 cities/towns and over 20,000 villages.

Mr Sinha noted that since 2005 investment of Rs 700 crore had been utilised and another Rs 700 crore would be utilised each year for expansion.

Focus on rural areas

He said the existing broadband capacity of one million ports is planned to be augmented to five million ports out of which about two million would be deployed in rural areas. Mr Sinha said it is also in the process of launching broadband access through Wi-Max technology in about 1,000 locations, which would be capable of offering wireless broadband services within a radius of about 25 kilometres.

Commenting on the multi-play, he said, currently, broadband subscribers would be given the IPTV, VoD (voice over demand) and World Space. It has tied up with Shemaroo for content and has about 400 movie titles.

The other offers planned include T commerce, education, messaging, Mr Sinha pointed out. He stated that when compared to other players in the field, BSNL would be offering network games, audio talkback and video talk, which are currently limited in the cable TV and not available in DTH (direct to home) services. The services would include about 100 TV channels, he added.

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