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BSNL places order for two million handsets

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI DEC. 16. The New Year will ring in some good news for prospective and prepaid cell phone users. The good news providers will be the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

For starters, the BSNL says that it will strive to reduce complaints that there are no handsets in the market. "We have placed orders for two million more handsets. From the last week of January we will be ready to distribute them," said the BSNL Chairman and Managing Director, Prithipal Singh.

BSNL officials say that they do not want to be left behind in the race for numbers. The BSNL has an equipped capacity of 4.4 million and 4.37 million subscribers. In March 2003, eight years after mobile telephones were introduced in the country, there were 13 million subscribers. In the first eight months of this financial year (till November 2003), more than 13.6 million new mobile telephones have been added. "What we have added in so many years, we have now added in a mere eight months," said the TRAI Economic Adviser, M. Kannan.

Tele-density target of seven per 1,000 has been achieved this month, 15 months earlier than the target date. With its wide network and customer service facilities, the public sector giant had quite a few advantages over its competitors, Mr. Singh said. So far, the main customer complaint related to the non-availability of handsets, the one issue that BSNL managers had worked hard to overcome.

The TRAI has suggested to the Centre that the customs duty on Wireless in Local Loop handsets be reduced from the present 14 per cent to five per cent. There is some "very good news" from TRAI for pre-paid customers. Details will be announced shortly. "The prepaid is the growth segment. The latest statistics that I came across showed that 80 per cent of the total cellular subscribed base consisted of pre-paid customers," Mr. Kannan said.

Already, TRAI has mandated that the minimum denomination for pre-paid cards should be Rs. 300 or less. Also, the card should be valid for at least a month. The TRAI has also directed that the talk time value should be informed to the customer in a clear manner and that the unused amount (at the end of the validity period) should be carried forward to the renewed card, if the renewal is done within a reasonable time gap.

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