The Hindu : BSNL to offer SMS in landline phones

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 18, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

BSNL to offer SMS in landline phones

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, JAN. 17. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will shortly offer SMS and answer phone facilities in its basic phone (Bfone) i.e., landline phones in the Coimbatore Secondary Switching Area (SSA), the Principal General Manager, R. Varadarajan, said today.

Talking to reporters, he said that necessary equipment and gadgets were being installed and the work would be over shortly. A small gadget needs to be attached to every landline phone for enabling SMS facility.

As part of its efforts to have radio signal coverage in the entire district, seven Cordless Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone (CORDECT) WLL exchanges were being installed to provide connections even in remote rural areas. These exchanges with 7,000 lines and 36 towers would come up on an outlay of Rs. 11 crores at Pollachi, Valparai, Udumalpet, Palladam, Mettuppalayam and Coimbatore. To provide round-the-clock fault-booking service, a centralised Fault Repair Booking system had been installed in every SDCA and the subscribers could register their complaints by dialling 198.

In addition to the existing Virtual Private Network Plan (VPN), corporate customers could come under the new Corporate VPN and the calls within the group would be free.

Similarly for the benefit of leased line subscribers, BSNL would shortly launch the Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN) to facilitate continuous monitoring of the status of leased lines and proactive fault correction without waiting for a customer complaint.

The customer need not purchase any modem, BSNL would install and maintain Network Terminating Units (NTUs) free of cost. Customers could get any desired bandwidth in the multiple of 64 kilo bits per second on demand. BSNL would also soon launch (Multi-Protocol Label Switched Virtual Private Network) which would enable secure and reliable data communication among companies geographically separated by distance.

To provide high-speed Internet and broadband services, the BSNL would soon launch a project called Access Network at Rs 20 crore. Already the work for laying Optic Fibre cables to reach every subscriber in Kurichi, Tirupur and Coimbatore, had begun and the cables had been laid on 70 kms out of the total 225 km proposed.

Bill payment

Expressing concern at the lack of patronage for payment of telephone bills through Syndicate Bank, Indian Bank and Karur Vysya Bank, the PGM pointed out that the subscribers could use the Electronic Clearing System (ECS) for remitting their phone bills.

This facility would give the subscriber one per cent discount on their bills besides doing away with long queues.

The PGM said that arrangements had been made at the Head Post offices to receive payments for phone bills up to seven days after the pay-by-date. The seven HPOs include: Coimbatore Main, R.S. Puram, Palladam, Avanashi, Mettuppalayam, Anamalai and Tirupur. Similarly bill payments for basic and cellphones could be made at all the telegraph offices in R.S. Puram, Peelamedu, Ramanathapuram, Coimbatore City (Bazar), Gandhipuram and Central Telegraph office near Collectorate and Telecom Centers at Ganapathy, Sundarapuram and Kavundampalayam before the pay-by-date.

The PGM also urged the subscribers to avail themselves of the waiver of rental for the disconnected period both in the case of post paid cellular phones as well as for landline phones. The BSNL also has an offer for additional phone connection exclusively for Internet as a concessional offer.

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