The Hindu : BSNL drive to woo customers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 01, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BSNL drive to woo customers

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MARCH 31. Henceforth, landline users can send SMS (Short Messaging Service) free of cost to other landlines and even mobiles. This and lower pulse rates are part of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) drive to woo subscribers to go in for landlines.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Wednesday, the Chief General Manager, BSNL, Andhra Pradesh, Sanjaya Kumar, said that the SMS service would be available free of cost to all landline users, provided they had base units to support the SMS.

The related equipment was said to be available freely in the open market at Rs. 2,000 upwards. People may also go for a small add-on device if they did not want the base unit, officials said.

While the SMS service would be on from April 1 (Thursday) itself, the lower pulse rate proposals may get finalised latest by May, 2004. When they are operationalised, subscribers will pay less for talking less because the existing pulse rate of 3 minutes would be reduced to one minute.

This means if a call lasts less than a minute, the subscriber will pay only 40 paise, compared to the Rs. 1.20 paise being charged now for a 3-minute call. When asked as to how long the SMS service will be free, the Principal General Manager, C. Goverdhan said `as of now, but at least for the next few months'.

Mr. Sanjaya Kumar later launched the Hyderabad Telephone Directory in both the book and compact disc forms, updated up to 01-01-2004.

The Yellow Pages Telephone Directory is printed and published by Pune-based Indiacom Ltd, in a user-friendly format by separating the residential and business categories for easy reference.

The Managing Director of Indiacom, Ashok Mandore said that the listing of business volumes had about 85,000 customers, including over 3,400 public limited and over 5,800 private companies. Also, he said 350 new categories of listings, in tune with emerging trends, had been included in the Yellow Pages.

Subscribers may obtain copies from all sub-divisional offices and customer care centres of the BSNL, on production the original receipt of the latest bill. Subscribers have the option to choose either the CD or the printed volume. However, stocks would be available from April second week onwards, officials hastened to add.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh