The Tatas-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) plans to introduce value-added services such as pre-paid calling cards and toll-free services for its international long distance (ILD) customers.
Earlier, as a government undertaking, the company had proposed to introduce pre-paid calling cards but withdrew the proposal for want of government approvals and other clearances.
However, the new management of VSNL now plans to revive the project. ILD services accounted for 88.61 per cent of VSNL's traffic revenue in 2001-02.
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The calling cards are expected to be a part of its retail marketing programme and to create an awareness of VSNL as an ILD service provider. A customer has little or no knowledge of VSNL as an ILD provider, VSNL sources said.
In a competitive market where players such as Bharti and Reliance group are entering ILD, the last mile connect and lock-in the customer has become vital to VSNL.
Last year, ILD traffic rose 16.06 per cent from 2.68 billion paid minutes to 3.12 billion paid minutes. VSNL is also renegotiating contracts with international carriers to ensure competitive rates. It has alliances with 85 carriers in 75 countries.
VSNL plans to spend Rs 100 crore in the current fiscal on additional infrastructure. It will soon commission a fully integrated broadband asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network.
This network will offer flexible and differentiated voice and data services to VSNL customers and easy switching of voice and data traffic. Moreover, VSNL is also expanding its bandwidth capability particularly to support data services.