16-02-2013, 04:28 PM
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
INTRODUCTION
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (abbreviated BSNL) is an Indian state-ownedtelecommunications company headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is the largest provider of fixed telephony and fourth largest mobile telephony provider in India, and is also a provider of broadband services. However, in recent years the company's revenue and market share plunged into heavy losses due to intense competition in Indian telecommunications sector.[4][5]
BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider (CSP). It had a customer base of 95 million as of June 2011.[6] It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, which are managed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).
Services
BSNL provides almost every telecom service in India. Following are the main telecom services provided by BSNL:
• Universal Telecom Services : Fixed wireline services and landline in local loop (WLL) using CDMA Technology called bfone and Tarang respectively. As of June 30, 2010, BSNL had 75% marketshare of fixed lines.
• Cellular Mobile Telephone Services: BSNL is major provider of Cellular Mobile Telephone services using GSM platform under the brand name Cellone & Excel (BSNL Mobile). As of June 30, 2010 BSNL has 13.50% share of mobile telephony in the country.[7]
• WLL-CDMA Telephone Services: BSNL's WLL (Wireless in Local Loop)service is a service giving both fixed line telephony & Mobile telephony.
• Internet: BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up connection (as Sancharnet through 2009[8]) as Prepaid, NetOne[9] as Postpaid and ADSL broadband as BSNL Broadband[10] BSNL held 55.76% of the market share with reported subscriber base of 9.19 million Internet subscribers with 7.79% of growth at the end of March 2010.[citation needed] Top 12 Dial-up Service providers, based on the subscriber base, It Also Provides Online Games via its Games on Demand (GOD)
• Intelligent Network (IN): BSNL offers value-added services, such as Free Phone Service (FPH), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rae Service (PRM), Universal Access Number (UAN).
• 3G:BSNL offers the '3G' or the'3rd Generation' services which includes facilities like video calling, mobile broadband, live TV, 3G Video portal, streaming services like online full length movies and video on demand etc.
• IPTV:BSNL also offers the 'Internet Protocol Television' facility which enables watch television through internet.
• FTTH:Fibre To The Home facility that offers a higher bandwidth for data transfer. This idea was proposed on post-December 2009
History
BSNL then known as the Department of Telecommunications had been a near monopoly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service provider in the country. MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New Delhi. During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result subscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection. The corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom service providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. DoT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Government policies, where in all state-owned service providers were required to function as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the society. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed to achieve this and India languished among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatisation of DoT. The corporatisation of BSNL was undertaken by an external international consulting team consisting of a consortium of A.F.Ferguson & Co, JB Dadachanji and NM Rothschild - and was probably the most complex corporatisation exercise of its kind ever attempted anywhere because of the quantum of assets (said to be worth USD 50 Billion in terms of breakup value) and over half a million directly and indirectly employed staff. Satish Mehta, who led the team later confessed that one big mistake made by the consortium was to recommend the continuation of the state and circle based geographical units which may have killed the synergies across regions and may have actually made the organisation less efficient than had it been a seamless national organisation. Vinod Vaish, then Chairman of the Telecom Commission made a very bold decision to promote younger talent from within the organisation to take up a leadership role and promoted the older leaders to a role in licensing rather than in managing the operations of BSNL. The efficiency of the company has since improved, however, the performance level is nowhere near the private players.
Challenges
During the financial year 2008-2009 (from April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009) BSNL has added 8.1 million new customers in various telephone services taking its customer base to 75.9 million. BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel is standing at a customer base of 62.3 million. However, despite impressive growth shown by BSNL in recent times, the Fixed line customer base of BSNL is declining. In order to woo back its fixed-line customers BSNL has brought down long distance calling rate under OneIndia plan, however, the success of the scheme is not known. However, BSNL faces bleak fiscal 2009-2010 as users flee.[15]
Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and various Telcos are rolling out attractive schemes and are providing good customer services. But situation as on 2012 BSNL will be third largest operator(Service) and No 1 access operator among country. As Trai Report 2011-12 BSNL became most trustworthy brand due to its loyalty towards customers and its rule.
Access Deficit Charges (ADC, a levy being paid by the private operators to BSNL for provide service in non-lucrative areas especially rural areas) has been slashed by 20% by TRAI, w.e.f. April 1, 2009.[16] The reduction in ADC may hit the bottomlines of BSNL.