The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : BSNL plans major expansion of cell network

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BSNL plans major expansion of cell network

By Aniket Alam

HYDERABAD, NOV. 23. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has planned a major expansion of cell phones in the State through an addition of about one million connections in the coming eight months. It will also add 350 towns and 9,000 km of highway and railroad to its network.

At present, BSNL has 7.65 lakh cell phone customers in the State in 325 towns. The network also covers 4,100 km of highways.

The BSNL Chief General Manager, Sanjaya Kumar, told The Hindu that the State had been allotted 9.6 lakh cell connections out of the one crore connections BSNL plans to offer in the country next year. Much of the equipment had been ordered and some of it had already been installed. Work was progressing at a brisk pace as demand was outstripping supply, he said.

More demand

Mr. Kumar said the State was no exception to the national trend of customers shifting towards mobile telephony. While landline numbers had more or less stagnated, there was a booming demand for cell phones and the company was preparing to meet it. According to the Cellular Operators Association of India, Andhra Pradesh has 24.05 lakh cell phones in October 2004. Out of this, Airtel has the largest pie with 7.92 lakh connections, followed by Idea with 5.24 lakh connections and Hutch with 3.24 lakhs.

Messaging service

The CellOne General Manager, G.V. Reddy, said that BSNL would introduce GPRS and MMS (multi-media messaging service) for its customers from Wednesday. This facility, which was already available with the other three cellular providers, allows Internet access from cell phones, thus enabling customers to browse web-pages, send and receive emails, multi-media messages, photos, music and videos. Mr. Reddy said that being the last entrant into the GPRS market, BSNL would price its service at a low monthly tariff for unlimited usage to attract customers.

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