Karnataka - Madikeri   

BSNL broadband service in rural areas of Kodagu soon

Madikeri: Broadband service to enable high-speed Internet facility in rural areas will be made available in Kodagu shortly, General Manager of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), Kodagu, T.V. Venkatram said here on Tuesday.

He told presspersons that commissioning of broadband equipment was under way in rural exchanges, which would be completed soon.

Besides, “data cards” were being introduced in the district to provide wireless Internet access, Mr. Venkatram said. The service, offered at Rs. 250 a month, enables subscribers to have unlimited access to high-speed Internet.

Among the new schemes, zero or reduced rental for rural areas (with less than 1,000 lines capacity) has been introduced with two options. Under the first option, a customer could pay Rs. 250 and no monthly rent would be collected for two years, he said and added that only the calls would be charged. Under the second option, a customer could pay monthly rent of Rs. 20 and he would get 20 free calls a month, Mr. Venkatram said.

For urban centres, a customer could pay rent for 10 months in advance and avail of telephone service for 12 months, he said. Customers can also pay 18 months’ rent in advance and avail of telephone service for 24 months.

Mr. Venkatram said that revenue collection under the Kodagu Telecom District in 2007-08 was about Rs. 18 crore, which was almost the same as the previous year. Reduced STD tariff and other concessions could have been the reasons for not making additional revenue last year, he said. The district had 41,000 landline connections in the 76 exchanges and there were over 1,400 broadband users, he said. The network of exchanges has been connected by optical fibre cable, spanning over 850 km in the district. Almost all 291 villages in the district had been given village public telephone connections. Over 5,000 connections were working in as many as 13 WLL (wireless in local loop) stations in Kodagu, Mr. Venkatram said.

Deputy General Manager of BSNL Vishnu Moorthy, Chief Accounts Officer M.C. Krishna Bhat, Divisional Engineer Janardhan Naik and Sub-Divisional Engineer Lingappa Gowda were present.

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