EliteCore ties up with BSNL for Net services

The city-based software solutions provider, EliteCore Technologies Ltd, has bagged an order from the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) for its Gujarat circle.

The billing partnership between EliteCore, which provides billing, provisioning, mediation and customer acquisition solutions, and BSNL for providing account-less internet access to consumers on a post-paid usage basis has gained further momentum with the recent development of BSNL's contract to EliteCore for Gujarat also, the company said.

BSNL and EliteCore have already tied up for 23 circles across the country.

EliteCore is promoted jointly by a group of US-based technocrats and Chirag Mehta, chief executive officer of Icenet.net Ltd, an Ahmedabad-based internet service provider.

EliteCore, which has reported a turnover of Rs 6 crore by the end of the last fiscal year, is targeting a 100 per cent rise in its sales turnover by the end of the current fiscal year with its recent tie ups with BSNL.

Branded as NetOne, this duration-based dialup internet service has already touched a subscription base of 12,000 in Ahmedabad and the usage is expected to go up with expansion in other parts of Gujarat, the company said.

"We are proud of the fact that EliteCore has provided the OSS and billing backbone for NetOne, the CLI (calling line identity) internet access facility. Because of our strong operation and business support system, BSNL managed to launch the NetOne service in 21 circles in a record 30 days, covering 2.5 lakh subscribers and adding 30,000 subscribers every month," Nikhil Jain, chief operating officer and president, EliteCore, said on Wednesday.

"Account-less internet access is a new method of accessing the Net. It provides internet access to all telephone subscriber without buying a separate internet pre-paid card. Customer can access the internet service from any telephone through dial-up. The service allows automatic registration on the first login. The authentication is based on the CLI of the telephone with the password supplied by the caller. The charging is totally usage-based and the service is a post-paid one like the normal PSTN service," Jain said.

The billing is separate, based on the duration of use, and is charged to the telephone bill (CLI-based) as the internet access charge at the rate of 10 paise per minute. As of now, the service is available in selected cities.

The access number is 172222 in all the cities. Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Mumbai, is also using the EliteCore billing solution for a similar type of dialup Internet service.

"In the process, it has expanded its subscriber base and become the third largest ISP in the country," said Jain.

Reena Malhotra, deputy general manager, value-added services, said, "MTNL EliteCore's CLI-based solution is integrated with MTNL's billing system to provide a single bill to customers for using the MTNL land line telephone and Internet services."

"Dial-up users on this service will grow to above 20 million by the end of 2004. Currently, there are 3.5 million dial-up subscriber in India," Jain said.