Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), in a New Year bonanza for its customers, has decided to remove the STD barring facility from all landline phones.
The company said it would gradually replace old instruments with caller line identification (CLI) facility, and increase the broadband speed and the free download limit.
Over the next 18 months, landline phones would be equipped with the CLI facility. And since the move involved replacing a huge number of phones, the initiative would be conducted in phases. In the mobile segment, location-based service would be launched from January next year.
The broadband speed will be increased from 256 kbps (kilobits per second) to up to 2 mbps (megabits per second) at the existing tariff of Rs 250 per month, from January 1 next year, thus upgrading all its 8.2 lakh broadband users. In addition, the free download limit will be enhanced from 0.4 gigabyte to 1 gigabyte. And the rates for further downloads have been decreased from Rs 1.40 per megabyte to 90 paise.
Announcing the bonanza, A K Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL, said that the download limit for business customers would be increased to 4GB, which would mean benefits up to Rs 2,400 a month.
Declaring 2007 as the Year of Broadband, Sinha said that BSNL would extend the service from 600 towns to 1,000, besides giving 50 lakh additional connections. Out of this, 18.4 lakh connections would be provided in the rural areas, and 31.6 lakh in the urban areas.
In rural areas, where broadband connection over copper lines is not possible, BSNL will use Wi-Max technology to offer broadband services.
According to BSNL, plans are in the pipeline to start an online gaming service. Besides, the company has reduced monthly charges for the One India Plan to Rs 1.80 per month, along with 50 free calls.
Also, the STD facility will be offered to 1.2 crore customers without any extra security deposit. The customers will have to inform BSNL if they want to continue with barring of the STD facility.
