Hyderabad, February 1: The Chief General Manager, State Telecom Circle, BSNL, Mr Rajeev Agarwal, has said that after a lot of preparation, they have added 150 BTSes and efforts were on to improve the coverage and reach further by installing additional BTSes.
Speaking to mediapersons at the Doorsanchar Bhavan here on Monday, in connection with the BSNL Mobile services in the Mobile Number Portability scenario, Mr Agarwal said thanks to the excellent services being offered, coupled with hard work by the staff, the BSNL has become the fastest growing mobile service in the State and was acknowledged by the customers.
Pointing out to the increasing penetration, he said that about five customers were opting to the service as against just one opting out to other service providers. In this month alone, some 3.5 lakh customers have opted for the BSNL services. Stating that customer choice and perception prevails at last, he said that they would strive to ensure that no customer was misinformed and the information being given was based upon facts.
Speaking about the attractive services being offered by the BSNL, Mr Agarwal said that a new Call centre has also been added recently, exclusively for Wireless services which could be contacted by calling the toll free number 1800 180 1503. He said that under the “Bandham” plan, a customer can make unlimited free calls to his land line number and thus can remain in touch with home without any cost. Under “Nestam”, a mobile subscriber could speak at only 10 paisa per minute. This also includes calling at 10 paisa per minute to the land line number. He also said that the BSNL has recently introduced a CDR based billing system in the fixed network. Under this, it was offering in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts “Friends and family plan” for landline customers. Such customers can make out-bound calls to BSNL mobile numbers in the State at as low as 20 paisa per minute in day and at 10 paisa per minute in night. Besides, free SIM was being offered to the customers coming through MNP along with Rs 100 additional talk value and 5 GB GPRS download. The port charge of Rs 19 was also waived off.
When asked about the tele-density, Mr Agarwal said that in rural areas it was 10.93 per every 100 customers, while in urban areas, it was 17.78 per 100 subscribers. He also said that the growth rate was around six per cent every month. Referring to exchanges, he said that while in rural areas there were 3,459 exchanges, in urban areas the figure stood at 807. He also noted that of the total number of 1126 block headquarters, about 1,121 were covered with WLL across 24,000 villages in the State.
“A large forest cover, uninhabited areas and some others were the impediments in that were hindering the increasing penetration of tele-density in far-flung areas”, he clarified.
NSS