"The new structure will help us transition towards a customer focused organisation while building sustainability and scalability to seamlessly manage 100 million customers and beyond," Bharti Chairman Sunil Mittal said in a statement.

Mittal said the new organisation was designed to enable strong corporate governance whilst ensuring operational freedom, through functional and matrix reporting relationships. The new organisation structure was pursuant to the company's vision announced in October last year of making Airtel, the most admired brand in India by 2010, it said.

Call anywhere in India for one rupee!

NEW DELHI, Feb 11: Believe it or not, people in India can now call from one end of the country to another for just Rupee 1 a minute. The revolutionary scheme called One India Plan, launched by state-run telecom units Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) Friday, is expected to increase the frequency of subscriber trunk dialing (STD) and make it more affordable for the rural population.

BSNL chairman A.K. Sinha and MTNL chief R.S.P. Sinha unveiled the plan at a joint press conference here, saying the new rates would be effective from March 1. While a local BSNL or MTNL call from a fixed line to any other fixed line would cost Re.1 every three minutes, any other call including long-distance STD calls would cost Re.1 per minute. The latter category will include calls to a mobile network.

While customers can continue availing their existing plans, the One India plan can be opted for at a monthly rental of Rs.299 per month. At present an STD call from a BSNL/MTNL fixed line costs Rs.2.40 per minute while a similar outstation call to a mobile costs Rs.3. Both the companies charge Rs.1.20 per three minutes for a local call to a fixed line. The existing rentals are however range between Rs 120 to 250 a month.

'The new plan will enable customers of BSNL and MTNL to call from one end of India to the other, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, for Re.1 per minute,' A.K. Sinha said. 'This will mark the death of distance and STD. STD will now be history. 'This is a win-win situation for the company as well as for customers,' MTNL chairman Sinha said.

S.D. Saxena, director of finance, BSNL, said: 'We might stand to lose a major chunk of our revenue on the face of it, but we expect the volumes of calls to go up substantially, which would compensate the new package.'

Though the pruning of the long distance calls are likely to cost the state owned telecom majors a whopping Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion), the government hopes to compensate the deficit with an anticipated increase in the volume of calls. The BSNL chief cites the example when during 2001 the STD rates were brought down from a whopping Rs 24 per minute to Rs 9. 'The volumes of calls increased nine times,' Sinha recalls.

The government now expects a growth at the rate of 20 million new fixed subscribers annually for which its planning to expand the optic fibre network from 400,000 kilometers to 1 million kilometers. BSNL and MTNL together had 40.70 million fixed line subscribers as on December 2005.

Meanwhile, the mobile service providers, who are expected to affect cuts in their call rates to cope up with the BSNL/MTNL move, have welcomed the step. Terming it as revolutionary, the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) said it would be beneficial for the rural consumers as lower STD rates will enhance their productivity.

T.V. Ramachandran, director general COAI, said that this initiative by Communications & IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, would lead to an explosion in long distance traffic as it had made STD calls affordable and within reach of each and every citizen in the country. He added that One India was the brilliant culmination of an exercise initiated by the minister in May 2005 to demolish entry barriers for long distance calls within the country.

Stamp on Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, Jan 13: Public sector Telecom companies, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), would launch their broadband services across the country from Friday, providing high-speed connectivity at tariffs ranging from Rs 500-43,000. The Union Communications and IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, would inaugurate the services at Chennai. The services will also be launched simultaneously from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata through video conferencing.

While BSNL would provide broadband services starting at 256 kbps in 198 cities spread across 24 telecom circles progressively by the end of March 2005, in Delhi and Mumbai, the services would be provided by MTNL.

BSNL under its brand name "Data One" will provide eight tariff plans, 4 each under Home Plan and Business Plan. The minimum monthly charges under the Home Plan range from Rs 500 to Rs 3,300 and Rs 1,200 to Rs 9,000 under Business Plan, depending on the bandwidth. MTNL will offer the services under "Tri Band" in eight tariff plans, monthly charges for which ranged from Rs 749 to Rs 42,999 with bandwidth spanning from 256 kbps to 2 Mbps with unlimited hour-free monthly usages.

MTNL is also offering a free 15-day trial plan (DSL-399) at Rs 399 at 256 Kbps download speed. To start with, MTNL is launching the service in areas under four telephone exchanges in Delhi. It plans to expand services to 40 exchanges by February end.

BSNL and MTNL have decided to provide 1.5 million connections by 2005 end, primarily based on ADSL technology leveraging the existing copper network. Private sector telecom operators are expected to provide the rest using various technology options. BSNL and MTNL have planned to invest more than Rs 350 crore for achieving their targets for the year 2005.

Broadband service will provide high speed Internet connectivity for various applications like web browsing and e-Commerce. In addition, the customer can avail himself of multi-cast video services, video on demand, bandwidth on demand and other value-added services.

The network for broadband service has been designed to permit triple play services -- video, voice and data to the customers. Broadband service would give a fillip to the growth of GDP and enhance the quality of life through societal applications including tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment as well as employment generation. The Broadband Policy 2004 envisages 3 million, 9 million and 20 million subscribers by end of 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively.

BSNL, MTNL to take Rs 2,000 cr hit in the new ADC regime

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, Jan 12: The new ADC regime is going to have a huge impact on revenues of public sector telecom companies - BSNL and MTNL - that in turn is expected to affect the spread of rural telephony in the country. The new Access Deficit Charge (ADC) would reduce revenues of BSNL and MTNL to the extent of Rs 2,000 crore per annum. Of this BSNL would lose Rs 1,254 crore and MTNL, the telecom service provider in Delhi and Mumbai, would lose Rs 700 crore.

ADC is a levy paid by private operators to the BSNL for its rural operations. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had announced last Thursday that the new ADC regime would come into effect from February 1. The new rates are expected to lower tariffs on national and international calls. MTNL has said that it would file its protest against the new ADC regime with the TRAI.

BSNL, which provides telecom services all over the country except Delhi and Mumbai, is expected to put on hold several ongoing projects especially in the rural areas. It may be mentioned that BSNL is the only telecom service provider that is undertaking the socially desirable but economically unviable projects and making all out efforts to reach telecom services in rural areas. After Unified Access Service Licence was introduced, the private sector has shed all responsibility to provide rural telephony and the entire burden is now being borne by BSNL only.

A BSNL official said "this not only requires additional capital investment by BSNL but also affects its revenue because BSNL has to provide rural telephones at the tariff of Rs 50 per month only against the average cost based rental of Rs 361 per month." In addition, he said "the company provides more free calls and lower call charges for the rural customers so as to keep these services within affordable limit of our rural citizens. We have raised these concerns with TRAI from time to time."

The official said "the new ADC regime is likely to cause revenue loss of about Rs 1,254 crore per annum to BSNL as per provision made by TRAI which is of the order of Rs 5,000 crore per annum only." He said "as per BSNL's network cost, this ADC should be of the order of about Rs 11,200 crore per annum at the present number of lines. This will increase with more addition of rural telephones in the network."

He said "the new ADC regime will not only affect our development activities but will also adversely impact the roll out of our services in rural areas as well." It is worth mentioning that BSNL has incurred expenditure of the order of about Rs 40,000 crore from 2001 to 2004 in rural telephony and socially desirable projects and had ambitious plans for the current year and future as well to fulfil the Government objective to achieve the envisaged rural teledensity targets for overall economic growth of the country."

The official said "with the reduced revenues from ADC as per the new regime, BSNL may now have to review some of these projects, which may hamper growth of services in rural areas and of other socially desirable but economically unviable projects."

Soon after TRAI's announcement, major telecom players players like Bharti, Hutch and Reliance have said they would pass on the full benefits to their subscribers. TRAI has reduced the ADC component on the ISD calls by over 41 per cent to Rs 2.50 a minute from the existing rate of Rs 4.25 and by 62 per cent on STD calls beyond 50 km to 30 paise from the existing 80 paise.

Rates of local calls, whether cell to cell, cell to fixed line or fixed line to cell, are unlikely to undergo any change as the structure for ADC component for these has remained unchanged. TRAI also said fixed line operators like Bharti, Reliance and Tatas (other than BSNL) would retain ADC only on their outgoing calls. ADC on all other calls will be provided to BSNL, it added. "This will keep the ADC burden low, while also maintaining the overall ADC amount to BSNL and other fixed line operators unchanged," TRAI said in a statement.

BSNL to provide 6 m broadband connections by 2007

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, Jan 7: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would provide 6 million broadband connections in the next three years, according to Mr N.K. Mangla, company's Director (C&M). Speaking to this correspondent, Mr Mangla said BSNL would provide 1 million broadband connections by end of 2005. "Another 2 million connections will be added in 2006 and another 3 million in 2007," he said.

He said the company would firstly provide broadband in all urban areas and some rural areas. He said deeper penetration in rural areas was not possible because of low PC penetration. Broadband has been defined as an always-on data connection supporting interactive services including Internet access with minimum download speed of 256 Kbps per subscriber.

The BSNL, which provides services all over the country except Delhi and Mumbai, plans to initially launch the Broadband services in four cities namely Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata under the brand name "Data One" from January 14. "The reach will be gradually increased to 198 cities in the country," said Mr Mangla.

The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), which provides services only in Delhi and Mumbai, would be launching the Boradband under the name of "Tri Band" in the two metros on the same day.

The new broadband policy aims to target three million broadband subscribers and six million Internet subscribers with a timeframe of December 2005. By the end of year 2010, the policy aims to target 20 million broadband subscribers and 40 million Internet subscribers. Broadband penetration is low in India where only two in 10,000 people have a high-speed hook-up, compared with one in four in South Korea. Digital subscriber line (DSL) connections are the main route by which India expects to boost access. BSNL has sourced such equipment from UTStarcom and Huawei.

Apart from BSNL and MTNL, companies such as Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, and the Reliance and Tata business groups also provide Internet access.

The BSNL broadband network will consist of different sizes of Digital Subscriber Line Access multiplexers (DSLAMs) which represent first point of presence for broadband customers. The DSLAM shall provide access upto 20 Mbps based on ADSL/ ADSL 2plus ITU -T G992.1/G992.3 and G992.5. They are connected to LAN switches, which aggregate the traffic coming from all DSLAMs of a city into a Gigabit Ethernet link over dedicated fiber. The network shall be centrally managed from Network Operating Centres (NOC) located at two sites one of them being the master at Bangalore and the other disaster recovery site at Pune.

With DataOne, BSNL is geared to completely change the way of communication. With a minimum speed of 256 Kbps surfing the Internet would be much faster than dial-up. The technology called ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) will allow both surfing and downloading at an amazing speed. This technology will enable the subscriber to surf the net and have a phone conversation simultaneously.

Mr Mangla said BSNL has 35 million copper pairs in the country. It includes 22 million lines in urban areas and 13 million in rural areas. Another 5 million lines are provided by MTNL. He said in 198 cities there are 2,600 exchanges. The country has 37,000 telephone exchanges. Out of which, 28,000 are in villages and 9,000 in semi-urban areas.

Mr Mangla said DataOne would enhance applications in various fields such as tele-medicine, tele-education, scientific research and tele agriculture. Such a service will serve as a bridge between the developing and the developed, between the urban and rural divide and let people interact across the globe digitally.

BSNL will offer separate tariff packages for home and business. The home users can avail band width of minimum download speed of 256Kbps at Rs 500 per month without security deposit while business users will have to shell out Rs 1200 monthly with 2 months rental as security deposit. The DataOne broad band service for the home segment will have four monthly tariff plans of Rs 500, Rs 1000, Rs 1800 and Rs 3300 while the corporate users will have plans starting from Rs 1200, Rs 3000, Rs 5000 to Rs 9000 depending on the data speed, data download-upload limit and additional usage charges.

"in" Internet domain launched

NEW DELHI, Jan 6: Indian identity in cyberspace got a major boost on Thursday following the extension of the ".in" country code Internet domain name registry, launched by the Union Communications Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, in the presence of eminent industrialists in the Capital.

Developed by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI),".in" will be the official Internet domain of India, Mr. Maran said. Owners of registered Indian trademarks or service marks, who wished to protect their identity, would be given the opportunity to apply for ".in" domain names before opening it up for the general public.

"Sunrise applications are being accepted from January 1 to 21 through four registrars - Direct 1, Good Luck Domains, Net4India Limited and Online NIC - followed by a silent period when applications would be scrutinised. The date for the opening of real-time (open registration for the general public) is February 16. The entire process of registration would be online and was likely to be completed within 24 hours," Mr. Maran said.

He said five-lakh Indian companies had been registered with other domain names and only 700 companies owned the ".in" domain. But now, more companies would be benefited from the new domain. The new facility, along with the proliferation of broadband, would make use of the Internet cheaper and easier, he added.

The new domain has already been adopted by 118 top Indian Government and private companies, including the Tata Group, the Bharti Group, TVS, MRF, Reliance, BSNL, MTNL, Indian Airlines, Air India, Wipro, Sun Network, Essar Group, HCL, The Hindu, the India Today Group, The Times Group, NDTV, the Hindustan Times, Moser Baer, UB Group, Sify and Satyam. Heads of these companies received certificates on the occasion from Mr Maran.

Ratan Tata of the Tata Group said the unique domain name would give his companies an identity that they never enjoyed and allow them to use it to their advantage.

Narrating how Airtel was not able to get it registered in ".com" domain as it had been allotted to a European company, Sunil Mittal of the Bharti Group said with its new domain name, his company now truly represented India. Other business leaders also called it a proud moment for them.

Terming it a "fine initiative," N. Ram, the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu said he hoped that the newly liberalised norms for domain registration would immensely help the Indian industry, besides creating the national identity in cyberspace. "Apart from the Indian industry and the corporate world, universities, scientific institutions, public sector undertakings and other organisations should avail this great opportunity to make their presence felt in the cyber space," Mr Ram said.

ISD, STD rates to fall; TRAI lowers ADC levy on private operators

TTO News Service

NEW DELHI, Jan 6: Tariffs of STD and ISD calls will come down with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday reducing the Access Deficit Charge, a levy paid by private operators to BSNL. TRAI has reduced the ADC component on the ISD calls by over 41 per cent to Rs 2.50 a minute from the existing rate of Rs 4.25 and by 62 per cent on STD calls beyond 50 km. to 30 paise from the existing 80 paise.

Major telecom players players like Bharti, Hutch and Reliance have said they would pass on the full benefits to their subscribers. The new regime would not upset the total ADC amount going to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd at Rs 5,000 crores annually, TRAI Chairman Pradip Baijal, told newsmen after announcing the new regime.

Rates of local calls, whether cell to cell, cell to fixed line or fixed line to cell, are unlikely to undergo any change as the structure for ADC component for these has remained unchanged. TRAI also said fixed line operators like Bharti, Reliance and Tatas (other than BSNL) would retain ADC only on their outgoing calls. ADC on all other calls will be provided to BSNL, it added.

"This will keep the ADC burden low, while also maintaining the overall ADC amount to BSNL and other fixed line operators unchanged," TRAI said in a statement. The new regime would come into effect from February 1, TRAI said adding the Authority would undertake fresh review of the ADC regime within three to six months of implementation of the current rates.

Commenting on the new regime, Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Group, said "benefits of ADC rate cut would be passed on 100 per cent to the customers... a major reduction has been made in the ADC on outgoing international calls, so the benefit there will also be passed on to the subscribers."

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which had been opposing any cut in ADC, seemed satisfied with the methodology adopted by TRAI saying it may not "upset" the ADC amount to the PSU. As per the new regime, the fixed line operators other than BSNL would retain ADC only on outgoing ISD calls while the levy on all other calls would be provided to BSNL.

"This will keep the ADC burden low, while also maintaining the overall ADC amount for BSNL and other fixed line operators unchanged," TRAI said.
TRAI has not made any changes in the ADC structure for local and intra circle calls and only changes have been made in the two categories of STD calls of 50-200 km and above 200 km distance slabs where ADC has been cut to 30 paise.

BSNL contributes Rs 20 cores for Tsunami victims

NEW DELHI, Jan 5: The Communications & IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, accompanied by Mr Nripendra Misra, Secretary Department of Telecom and Mr A.K. Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL, handed over two cheques of Rs10 crores each to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, for the Prime Minister's Relief Fund in aid of Tsunami victims.

Rs 10 crores is contributed by BSNL as a Corproate and another Rs 10 crore are contributed by 3.5 lakh BSNL employees as their one day salary towards Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Tsunami victims, according to Mr Anil Jain, Deputy Director Generak (Marketing), BSNL.

Mr Jain informed that BSNL mobile services was the only mobile communication medium between Andaman & Nicobar circle and other parts of the country. The mobile services are fully operative since December 26, 2004 when the Tsunami hit the islands. The mobile services were badly affected in southern island of Andaman & Nicobar. The network was damaged in Car Nicobar island and BSNL immediately sent 15 INMARSAT terminals which were utilised for the communication by Civil and Army authorities and general public.

BSNL had also put in free public telephones in all relief camps in Tamil Nadu to help affected people communicate with their near and dears.

Mr Jain said that BSNL was able to restore 100 per cent telecom network in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry within 72 hours of Tsunami hitting the Indians coasts. A team of officers and officials was deputed to Andaman & Nicobar, which was the worst affected coastal area due to Tsunami. BSNL was able to recover all but two exchanges in Andaman & Nicobar Island. BSNL has reached even to those Islands and restored telecommunications systems where Army is depopulating the area.

BSNL appoints advisor

NEW DELHI, Jan 5: Morgan Stanely has been appointed as advisor by BSNL to guide it through the process of synergising operations of itself and MTNL as proposed by the Department of Telecom. BSNL has appointed Morgan Stanley as advisor to the synergising process of BSNL and MTNL, sources said.

BSNL restores telcom links in tsunami-hit areas, Maran reviews

NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Union IT and Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Wednesday reviewed the measures taken to restore communication links in the tsunami-hit areas even as BSNL said telecom facilities in these areas had been restored. Maran, who was briefed by senior officers of Department of Telecom and the CMD of BSNL, directed officials to give top priority to the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

He has asked BSNL to charge normal STD charges instead of satellite tariff, which is comparatively much higher, for calls and has directed that the telephones in the tsunami-affected areas should not be disconnected for non-payment of bills, an official update said.

In the Andaman & Nicobar circles, five telephone exchanges-- Diglipur, Kalighat Kalera, Kishori Nagar and Ram Nagar have been restored. Five INMARSAT terminals have been airlifted to the islands and ten more are being rushed to be used as public telephones in places where telecom services have been disrupted because of the natural disaster.

BSNL takes steps to restore links to Andamans

NEW DELHI, Dec 28: The earthquake and tsunami have partially affected BSNL network in Andaman and Nicobar. Services at Port Blair have been restored to normalcy, a BSNL release said. Satellite stations at Car Nicobar and Hut Bay are affected and efforts are on to restore them at the earliest, it said. Exchanges at Diglipur, Campbeil Bay and Kamrola are interrupted and normal operations are likely to be restored very soon, the release added.

BSNL warns basic telephone charges will go up if ADC reduced

NEW DELHI, Dec 20: The BSNL on Monday warned that the fixed line telephone charges would go up considerably in case telecom regulator TRAI reduces the Access Deficit Charge (ADC) which the public sector company gets from private operators for its rural operations. "The fixed line telecom charges are below cost... The telephone rental per month could be as high as Rs 360 and call charges also could increase if the ADC is reduced," according to Mr A K Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL. He said that no operator or any other stake-holder would like that scenario.

Mr Sinha, who was speaking to newsmen to announce the company's results, said ADC is not a benefit to BSNL, but covers its cost in providing services in rural areas and in fact all private basic operators who go to rural areas get the ADC. He said BSNL had pleaded with TRAI not to reduce the ADC. The current rental for BSNL urban fixed-line subscriber is Rs 250 a month.

At present only cell phone tariffs are cost based. Even in a city like like Delhi fixed line tariffs are lower than the cost. If there is no ADC, rentals will have to be doubled and number of free calls will have to be brought down to zero to keep the service viable. ADC was created to compensate fixed line operators for non cost-based tariffs and all of them get it, he said.

BSNL is to get about Rs 5,000 crore this fiscal (2004-05) as ADC charge, which ranges from 0.30-0.80 paise a minute for local/STD calls made from mobile phones, and Rs 4.25 in case of international calls. Mr Sinha said a certain quantum of ADC's level should be assured, even if it is kept at the current level (Rs 5,000 crore), despite the huge growth in mobile subscriber base.

BSNL pays Rs 481.25 cr dividend

NEW DELHI, Dec 20:The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) paid Rs 481.25 crore as dividend to the Government. The Dividend Cheque was presented to Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications & Information Technology, by Mr A.K. Sinha in the presence of Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad and Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, Mr Nripendra Misra.

The dividend cheque presented includes two components of Rs 281.25 crore towards dividend payment for the year 2003-04 and another Rs 200 crore towards advance dividend payment for the year 2004-05. BSNL recorded Rs 5,976 crore in profits on sales of about Rs 31,400 crore for 2003-04. The previous fiscal, 2002-03, the company had profits of Rs 1,444 crore. The dip in profits in 2002-03 was largely on account of clearing wage arrears, hence the four-fold rise in 2003-04, according to Mr Sinha.

However, during 2003-04 about Rs 1,500 crore out of Rs 5,976 crore profits were on account of write back of expenditure, minus which the net would have been about Rs 4,500 crore.

It showed higher profits and sales during 2003-04, despite a continued falls in tariffs. The company added 3 million cellular and 1 million landline subscribers during the fiscal. This year the company is expected to add 7 million cellular and about 1.7 million landline subscribers and the continuing fall in tariffs may not allow it to improve results in a very big way.

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