Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| BSNL | |
 |
|
| Type | Communication Service Provider |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Availability | Countrywide except Delhi & Mumbai |
| Owner | The Government of India |
| Key people | S.D. Saxena (CFO); A.K. Sinha (CEO) |
| Founded | 19th Century, incorporated 2000 |
| Website | www.bsnl.in |
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (known as BSNL) is a public sector communications company in India. Its headquarters are at Statesman House, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi. It has a status of Mini Ratna - a status assigned to reputed Public Sector companies in India.
BSNL is India's oldest and largest Communication Service Provider (CSP). Currently BSNL has a customer base of 62 million (Basic & Mobile telephony). It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi which are managed by MTNL. As on February 28, 2007 BSNL commanded a customer base of 33.5 million Wireline, 3.1 million CDMA-WLL and 25.4 million GSM Mobile subscribers. BSNL's earnings for the Financial Year ending March 31, 2006 stood at INR 401.8b (US$ 9.09 b) with net profit of INR 89.4b (US$ 2.02 billion). Today, BSNL is India's largest Telco and one of the largest Public Sector Undertaking of the country with authorized share capital of US$ 3.95 billion (INR 17,500 Crores) and networth of US$ 14.32 billion.
Contents |
[edit] History
The foundation of Telecom Network in India was laid by the British sometime in 19th Century. The history of BSNL is linked with the beginning of Telecom in India. In 19th century and for almost entire 20th century, the Telecom in India was operated as a Government of India wing. Earlier it was part of erstwhile Post & Telegraph Department (P&T). In 1975 the Department of Telecom (DoT) was separated from P&T. DoT was resposnsible for running of Telecom services in entire country until 1985 when Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) was carved out of DoT to run the telecom services of Delhi and Mumbai.It is a well known fact that BSNL was carved out of Department of Telecom to provide level playing field to private telecoms.Subsequently in 1990s the telecom sector was opened up by the Government for Private investment, therefore it became necessary to separate the Government's policy wing from Operations wing. The Government of India corporatised the operations wing of DoT on October 01, 2000 and named it as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).BSNL operates as a public sector.
[edit] Main Services being provided by BSNL
BSNL provides almost every telecom service, however following are the main Telecom Services being provided by BSNL in India:-
1. Universal Telecom Sevices : Fixed wireline services & Wireless in Local loop (WLL) using CDMA Technology called bfone and Tarang.
2. Cellular Mobile Telephone Services: BSNL is major provider of Cellular Mobile Telephone services using GSM platform,called Cell One and BSNL's GSM Cellular services are know as Excel Power (Prepaid).
3. Internet: BSNL is providing internet as dial-up connection (Sancharnet) and ADSL-Broadband (Dataone).
4. Intelligent Netwok (IN): BSNL is providing IN services like tele-voting, toll free calling, premium calling etc.
[edit] BSNL Units
BSNL is divided into a number of administrative units, termed as telecom circles, metro districts, project circles and specialized units, as mentioned below:-
Telecom Circles: Telecom Circles & Metro districts are responsible for providing service to the customers. There are 24 Telecom Circles and 2 Metro districts.
1. Andaman & Nicobar Telecom Circle
2. Andhra Pradesh Telecom Circle
3. Assam Telecom Circle
4. Bihar Telecom Circle
5. Chhatisgarh Telecom Circle
6. Gujarat Telecom Circle
7. Haryana Telecom Circle
8. Himachal Pradesh Telecom Circle
9. Jammu & Kashmir Telecom Circle
10. Jharkhand Telecom Circle
11. Karnataka Telecom Circle
12. Kerala Telecom Circle
13. Madhya Pradesh Telecom Circle
14. Maharashtra Telecom Circle
15. North East-I Telecom Circle
16. North East-II Telecom Circle
17. Orissa Telecom Circle
18. Punjab Telecom Circle
19. Rajasthan Telecom Circle
20. Tamil Nadu Telecom Circle
21. Uttar Pradesh (East) Telecom Circle
22. Uttar Pradesh (West) Telecom Circle
23. Uttranchal Telecom Circle
24. West Bengal Telecom Circle
Metro Districts
1. Kolkata Telecom District
2. Chennai Telecom District
Project Circles
1. Eastern Telecom Project Circle
2. Western Telecom Project Circle
3. Northern Telecom Project Circle
4. Southern Telecom Project Circle
5. IT Project Circle, Pune
Maintenance Regions
1. Eastern Telecom Maintenance Region
2. Western Telecom Maintenance Region
3. Northern Telecom Maintenance Region
4. Southern Telecom Maintenance Region
Specialized Telecom Units
1. Data Networks
2. National Centre For Electronic Switching
3. Technical & Development Circle
4. Quality Assurance
Manufaturing Units
1. Telecom Factory, Mumbai
2. Telecom Factory, Jabalpur
3. Telecom Factory, Richhai
4. Telecom Factory, Kolkata
Training Institutions
1. Advanced Level Telecom Training Centre(ALTTC)
2. Bharat Ratna Bhim Rao Ambedkar Institute Of Telecom Training
3. National Academy of Telecom Finance and Management
Other Units
1. Telecom Stores
2. Telecom Electrical Wing
3. Telecom Civil Wing
[edit] BSNL Present & Future
Since its corporatisation in October 2000, BSNL has been actively providing connections in both Urban and Rural areas and the efficiency of the company has drastically improved from the days when one had to wait for years to get a phone connection to now when one can get a connection in even hours. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled very cost-effective Broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's 47% of market share of ISP services. [1]Indian Communications Minister Thiru Dayanidhi Maran has declared year 2007 as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL is gearing up to provide 5 million Broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL has upgraded existing Dataone (Broadband) connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbps without any extra cost. This 2Mb/s broadband service is being provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$ 5.5 per month. Further, BSNL is planning to upgrade its broadband services to Triple play (telecommunications) in 2007.
BSNL has been asked to add 108 million customers by 2010 by Indian Communications Minister Thiru Dayanidhi Maran [2]. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the target appears achievable, however due to intense competition in Indian Telecom sector in recent past BSNL's growth has slowed down.
BSNL is pioneer of Rural Telephony in India. BSNL has recently bagged 80% of US$ 580 m (INR 2,500 crores) Rural Telephony project of Government of India. [3]
[edit] Challenges
From April 01, 2006 to February 28, 2007 BSNL has added 7 million new customers in various telephone services taking its customer base to 62 million. BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel is standing at a customer base of 37.2 million. However despite impressive growth shown by BSNL in recent times, the Fixed line customer base of BSNL is declining. In order to woo back its fixed-line customers BSNL has brought down long distance calling rate under OneIndia plan, however, the success of the scheme is not known. However, BSNL faces bleak fiscal 2006-2007 as users flee, which has been accepted by the CMD BSNL.[4]
Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and various Telcos are rolling out attractive schemes and are providing good customer services. However, BSNL being legacy operator and its conversion from a Government Department, earns lot of critisism for its poor customer service. Although in recent past there have been tremendous improvement in working of BSNL but still it is much below the Industry's Expectations. A large aging (average age 49 years(appx)) workforce (300,000 strong), which is mostly semi-illetrate or illeterate is the main reason for the poor customer service. Further, the Top mangement of BSNL is still working in BSNL on deputation basis holding Government employee status thus having little commitment to the organisation. Although in coming years the retirement profile of the workforce is very fast and around 25% of existing workforce will retire by 2010, however, still the workforce will be quite large by the industry standards. Quality of the workforce will also remain an issue.
Access Deficit Charges (ADC, a levy being paid by the private operators to BSNL for provide service in non-lucarative areas especially rural areas) has been slashed by 37% by TRAI, w.e.f. April 01, 2007.[5] The reduction in ADC may hit the bottomlines of BSNL.
[edit] Recent News
BSNL is in the process of finalising a Mega tender for rollout of 60 million GSM lines. The tender has invited a controversy, when one of the bidders Motorola was disqualified by BSNL on technical grounds and Motorola has approached the court. BSNL has been allowed to process the tender, however, the Court has restrained BSNL from awarding the tender. However to meet the immediate needs of capacity addition in GSM segment, BSNL has awarded US$ 250 million contract for 4 million GSM lines to existing vendors of BSNL i.e. Nortel, Nokia & Ericsson. Further in its hearing on February 26, 2007 the Delhi High Court has asked BSNL to file an application on its proposal seeking clearance to award 40% of its 45 million GSM lines contract.[6]
BSNL has narrowly missed out the coveted 'Navratna' status of Indian PSUs because of a technicality, however the apex committee has kept its case alive, and same may be reconsidered. [7]
Shri Kuldeep Goyal (currently CGM, BSNL Maharashtra) is likely to be designated as next CMD (Chairman & Managing Director) after the term of current CMD Shri A.K. Sinha ends [8].
Indian Telecom Minister Thiru Dayanidhi Maran has set an aggressive targets for BSNL. They have been asked to double their annual turnover to US$ 20 billion in next 3 years by 27 percent year on year growth. [9]
BSNL is going to invest US$ 13.7b (Rs 60,000 crores) in next 3 years. [10]
BSNL is India's no. 1 brand recall. [11]
