| Type | State-owned enterprise |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 19th century, incorporated 2000 |
| Headquarters | New Delhi, India |
| Key people | Rakesh Kumar Upadhyay (CMD) |
| Products | Fixed line and mobile telephony, Internet services, digital television, IPTV |
| Revenue | 32,045 crore (US$6.09 billion) (2009-10)[1] |
| Net income | -1,822 crore (US$-0.35 billion) (2009–10) |
| Total assets | 132,243 crore (US$25.13 billion) (2009–10)[2] |
| Employees | 281,635 (March 2011)[3] |
| Website | www.bsnl.co.in |
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (abbreviated BSNL) is a state-owned telecommunications company headquartered in New Delhi, India. 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 Indian telecommunications sector.[4][5]
BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider (CSP). It had a customer base of 90 million as of June 2008.[6] It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, which are managed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).
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BSNL provides almost every telecom service in India. Following are the main telecom services provided by BSNL:
BSNL is divided into a number of administrative units termed as telecom circles, metro districts, project circles and specialized units, as mentioned below:
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 efficiency of the company has since improved, however, the performance level is nowhere near the private players.
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. 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.[10]
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. 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 2,500 crores) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.[11]
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 18,500 crore, which includes Rs 10,186 crore for 3G and Rs 8313crore for BWA.[
During the financial year 2008-2009 (from April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009) BSNL has added 8.1 million new customers in various telephone services taking its customer base to 75.9 million. BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel is standing at a customer base of 62.3 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 2009-2010 as users flee[12]
Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and various Telcos are rolling out attractive schemes and are providing good customer services.
Access Deficit Charges (ADC, a levy being paid by the private operators to BSNL for provide service in non-lucrative areas especially rural areas) has been slashed by 20% by TRAI, w.e.f. April 1, 2009.[13] The reduction in ADC may hit the bottomlines of BSNL.
BSNL has started 3G services in 290 cities and acquired more than 6 Lakh customers. It has planned to roll out 3G services in 760 cities across the country in 2010-11.
Broadband services : The shift in demand from voice to data has revolutionized the very nature of the network. BSNL is poised to cash on this opportunity and has planned for extensive expansion of the Broadband services. The Broadband customer base of 3.56 Million customer in March'2009 is planned to be increased to 16.00 million by March 2014.[14] Now bsnl is the under top five telecom service provider company in India. when compared to other telecom companies the quality of employees are not satisfactory.customer oriented,management skills are also poor,the influenece of unions in the organisation will also affect the future of bsnl
Another major crisis that may hit BSNL from Nov 2011 is due to repatriation of its 1800 strong highly skilled senior and top managers of Indian Telecom Service(ITS) officers to DOT. This may dent the company irrevocably and further deteriorate its functioning and top and bottom lines.
On February 23, 2011, The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said it wanted to revive a proposal for the merger of state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL. In its draft plan, the department while showing concern over the deteriorating performance of BSNL and MTNL said that BSNL and MTNL should be merged as they have complimentary operations and can combine their strengths for synergies. DoT said the government should set up a multi-stakeholder committee to develop a restructuring plan for both firms. The committee should have members from public enterprises, the DoT, department of IT and ministry of finance. However the BSNL's staff unions are opposing this merger tooth and nail realising that MTNL is in dire state and need help of its big brother,BSNL,to alleviate itself from getting into red balance sheet.MTNL in spite of having its operations in two big metro cities viz.New Delhi & Mumbai is realising cascading fall in revenue and profits for the past 10 successive years.The telecommunication operators should focus on enterprise business, services to government and the public sector, value-added services and technologies like 3G, the department recommends.
While it did not participate in the 3G auction, BSNL paid the Indian government Rs. 10,187 crores for 3G spectrum in all 20 circles it operates in. State-owned MTNL provides 3G services in the other 2 circles - Delhi and Mumbai.[15] Both these state-owned operators were given a head start by the government in the 3G space by allotting the required 3G spectrum, on the condition that each will have to pay an amount which will be equivalent to the highest bid in the respective service areas as and when the 3G auctions take place.[16]
BSNL has the largest 3G network in India. Additionally, BSNL 3G services usually cover not only the main town/city but also the adjoining suburbs and rural areas as well.
As of now BSNL has 3G services in 826 cities across India. The following is a list of BSNL 3G enabled towns/cities. This list covers only BSNL 3G services provided through HSDPA/HSUPA and HSPA+ for GSM subscribers and not EVDO for CDMA subscribers.
Note: This list may not be complete as new towns/cities are added regularly.
The Brand Trust Report published by Trust Research Advisory ranked BSNL in the 65th position of the list of Most Trusted brands.
BSNL competes with 14 other mobile operators throughout India. They are Aircel, Airtel Cheers Mobile, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Ping Mobile, Reliance Communications, S Tel, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom, Uninor, Videocon, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.
Bangalore Telecom goes by the motto http://www.bangaloretelecom.com/quality.htm and displays the same in their homepage.
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