State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) on Thursday said it is upgrading and expanding both mobile as well as fixed telephone networks by converting the existing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) exchanges with a next generation network (NGN), which will be functional from April 2.

As part of the programme, the company has upgraded 660 telephone exchanges to NGN. BSNL is on the way to modernising and upgrading its mobile network under phase VII+. It has planned to add additional 21,000 BTS (towers) with a total investment of more then ₹2,000 crore. These new BTS also include more then 13,000 3G BTS.

NGN technology has been designed and manufactured locally by public sector unit, Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), as part the government’s ‘Make in India’ programme.

“This technology from C-DOT will help BSNL deploy NGN technology in urban and rural parts of the country. We will start with the urban and semi-urban areas and then the rural areas in a later phase,” Anupam Srivastava, Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL, told presspersons here.

The company also launched value-added services (VAS) on NGN, including all-India IP Centrex, multimedia voice conferencing, fixed mobile convergence and a pre-paid version of fixed telephone.

Meanwhile, the company has also launched a Wi-Fi hotspot at Katra (Jammu) for Vaishno Devi Shrine visitors. This is the 1,000{+t}{+h} hotspot launched by the company over the last one year.

The launch was remotely inaugurated by Communications and IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, at BSNL headquarters here.

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