Shimla: Being the largest telephone operator in Himachal, BSNL plans to introduce new services like IPTV on broadband and 3G services on mobile phones soon.
Speaking to the media Anil Kaushal, chief general manager BSNL Himachal said that the public sector undertaking planned to expand broad band services to 400 more locations.
With this planned expansion, we will have a capacity to provide 56,000 broadband connections in the state. Presently there are about 17,000 broadband connections being provided on landline phones and we are laying special emphasis on expansion of broad band service in the hill state, he said.
Kaushal said that plans to start IPTV had been finalized and the tariffs would be comparable with cable television or DTH services. At the moment the service has been introduced in Rajasthan and Himachal too would be an early state where it would be made available soon.
Being a early bird, 3G services on mobiles would be rolled out by December in 15 towns including all district headquarters, he said.
Faced with a problem of cable cutting and theft, the public sector operator has gone in for WLL connectivity in a big way and already has a 90,000 subscriber base.
As loyalty reward the company is giving out a free SIM to customers who have been subscribers for a long time and for students a special discounted price scheme had been introduced, the CGM said.
In tele-density, Himachal occupies the third place nationally after Kerala and Punjab as 47 percent of the states 65 lakh population does own a telephone, he said claiming, in this BSNL is the largest player having a 33 percent market share and the rest is shared by 7 other operators.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
