Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited ( BSNL) is an Indian state-owned telecommunications company headquartered in New Delhi, India. It was incorporated on 15 September 2000. It took over the business of providing of telecom services and network management from the erstwhile Central Government Departments of Telecom Services (DTS) and Telecom Operations (DTO), with effect from 1 October 2000 on going concern basis. It is the largest provider of fixed telephony and fourth largest mobile telephony provider in India, and is also a provider of broadband services. However, in recent years the company's revenue and market share plunged into heavy losses due to intense competition in the Indian telecommunications sector.
BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider (CSP). It had a customer base of 117 million as of Jan 2014.[6] It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, which are managed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).
BSNL, then known as the Department of Telecommunications, had been a near monopoly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service provider in the country. MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New Delhi. During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result subscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection. The corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom service providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. DoT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Government policies, where in all state-owned service providers were required to function as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the society. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed to achieve this and India languished among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatisation of DoT. The corporatisation of BSNL was undertaken by an external international consulting team consisting of a consortium of A.F.Ferguson & Co, JB Dadachanji and NM Rothschild - and was probably the most complex corporatisation exercise of its kind ever attempted anywhere because of the quantum of assets (said to be worth USD 50 Billion in terms of breakup value) and over half a million directly and indirectly employed staff. Satish Mehta, who led the team later confessed that one big mistake made by the consortium was to recommend the continuation of the state and circle based geographical units which may have killed the synergies across regions and may have actually made the organisation less efficient than had it been a seamless national organisation. Vinod Vaish, then Chairman of the Telecom Commission made a very bold decision to promote younger talent from within the organisation to take up a leadership role and promoted the older leaders to a role in licensing rather than in managing the operations of BSNL. The efficiency of the company has since improved, however, the performance level is nowhere near the private players.[citation needed]
The corporation remains heavily unionised and is comparatively slow in decision making and its implementation, which largely acts at the instances of unions without bothering about outcome. Management has been reactive to the schemes of private telecom players.[citation needed] Though it offers services at lowest tariffs, the private players continue to notch up better numbers in all areas, years after year. BSNL has been providing connections in both urban and rural areas. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled cost-effective broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's around 60% of market share of ISP services.
Year of Broadband 2007
2007 was declared as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL announced plans for providing 5 million broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL upgraded Dataone connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s without any extra cost. This 2 Mbit/s broadband service was provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$ 11.7 per month (as of 21 July 2008 and at a limit of 2.5GB monthly limit with 0200-0800 hrs as no charge period). Further, BSNL is rolling out new broadband services such as triple play.[citation needed] BSNL planned to increase its customer base to 108 million customers by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the target appears achievable.
BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India. BSNL has recently bagged 80% of US$ 580 m (INR 25 billion) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.[15]
On 20 March 2009 BSNL advertised the launch of BlackBerry services across its Telecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G services in select cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the only players to provide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed auction of 3G services for private players. BSNL shall get 3G bandwidth at lowest bidder prices of Rs 185 billion, which includes Rs 101.86 billion for 3G and Rs 83.13 billion for BWA.
As of December 2011, many other private operators have started rolling out their 3rd Generation (aka 3G) services alongside and are enjoying some success in their campaigns to get market share. While BSNL still maintains its connectivity standard and expands to many more areas including rural areas with their 3G services. Also the network infrastructure has been upgraded from to provide 3.6 Mbit/s to 7.2 MBits/sec. It is enjoying a slow but somewhat steady success in gaining market share in this regard.
The introduction of MNP(Mobile Number Portability) which is an service that lets the consumer change wireless service providers while retaining their actual mobile number, BSNL has seen many customers opting for this service to move away from the services to other operators. Despite this as the Indian Wireless market grows BSNL still has a loyal base of subscribers and many more subscribers being added to it every day. This provides customer services for 95 million as of June 2011.
BSNL announced the discontinuation of its telegram services from 15 July 2013, after 160 years in service. It was opened to the public in February 1855; in 2010 it was upgraded to a web-based messaging system in 2010, through 182 telegraph offices across India.
BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider (CSP). It had a customer base of 117 million as of Jan 2014.[6] It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, which are managed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).
BSNL, then known as the Department of Telecommunications, had been a near monopoly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service provider in the country. MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New Delhi. During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result subscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection. The corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom service providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. DoT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Government policies, where in all state-owned service providers were required to function as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the society. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed to achieve this and India languished among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatisation of DoT. The corporatisation of BSNL was undertaken by an external international consulting team consisting of a consortium of A.F.Ferguson & Co, JB Dadachanji and NM Rothschild - and was probably the most complex corporatisation exercise of its kind ever attempted anywhere because of the quantum of assets (said to be worth USD 50 Billion in terms of breakup value) and over half a million directly and indirectly employed staff. Satish Mehta, who led the team later confessed that one big mistake made by the consortium was to recommend the continuation of the state and circle based geographical units which may have killed the synergies across regions and may have actually made the organisation less efficient than had it been a seamless national organisation. Vinod Vaish, then Chairman of the Telecom Commission made a very bold decision to promote younger talent from within the organisation to take up a leadership role and promoted the older leaders to a role in licensing rather than in managing the operations of BSNL. The efficiency of the company has since improved, however, the performance level is nowhere near the private players.[citation needed]
The corporation remains heavily unionised and is comparatively slow in decision making and its implementation, which largely acts at the instances of unions without bothering about outcome. Management has been reactive to the schemes of private telecom players.[citation needed] Though it offers services at lowest tariffs, the private players continue to notch up better numbers in all areas, years after year. BSNL has been providing connections in both urban and rural areas. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled cost-effective broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's around 60% of market share of ISP services.
Year of Broadband 2007
2007 was declared as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL announced plans for providing 5 million broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL upgraded Dataone connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s without any extra cost. This 2 Mbit/s broadband service was provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$ 11.7 per month (as of 21 July 2008 and at a limit of 2.5GB monthly limit with 0200-0800 hrs as no charge period). Further, BSNL is rolling out new broadband services such as triple play.[citation needed] BSNL planned to increase its customer base to 108 million customers by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the target appears achievable.
BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India. BSNL has recently bagged 80% of US$ 580 m (INR 25 billion) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.[15]
On 20 March 2009 BSNL advertised the launch of BlackBerry services across its Telecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G services in select cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the only players to provide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed auction of 3G services for private players. BSNL shall get 3G bandwidth at lowest bidder prices of Rs 185 billion, which includes Rs 101.86 billion for 3G and Rs 83.13 billion for BWA.
As of December 2011, many other private operators have started rolling out their 3rd Generation (aka 3G) services alongside and are enjoying some success in their campaigns to get market share. While BSNL still maintains its connectivity standard and expands to many more areas including rural areas with their 3G services. Also the network infrastructure has been upgraded from to provide 3.6 Mbit/s to 7.2 MBits/sec. It is enjoying a slow but somewhat steady success in gaining market share in this regard.
The introduction of MNP(Mobile Number Portability) which is an service that lets the consumer change wireless service providers while retaining their actual mobile number, BSNL has seen many customers opting for this service to move away from the services to other operators. Despite this as the Indian Wireless market grows BSNL still has a loyal base of subscribers and many more subscribers being added to it every day. This provides customer services for 95 million as of June 2011.
BSNL announced the discontinuation of its telegram services from 15 July 2013, after 160 years in service. It was opened to the public in February 1855; in 2010 it was upgraded to a web-based messaging system in 2010, through 182 telegraph offices across India.
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