Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) will expand the reach of its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-based mobile service in the next few months by increasing the number of base stations from five at present to 13 or 14, A K Bhatnagar, chief general manager (Delhi) said.
The equipment for the expansion is being procured as part of the 50,000 line CDMA tender. While financial bids are expected to be opened shortly, MTNL hopes to secure a per line cost of around $200 (inclusive of handset). The current infrastructure for 10,000 lines was purchased at around double this amount. MTNL had received an equally competitive price for another 50,000 line tender (intended for installation in Mumbai), however, the award of the contract has been stayed by the courts.
In contrast, cost per line in the fixed network hovers around Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per line. In fact, 20,000 of the 50,000 lines purchased for Delhi will be used to offer fixed wireless services in locations where the laying of cable is technically non-feasible. While the subscriber terminals are presently tailor-made for MTNL, the company expects a primary market for handsets to develop along with an increase in subscriber volumes.
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Meanwhile, MTNL has said that it will resume registrations for the CDMA service next week. Registrations were suspended yesterday after Delhi Police told the company that they would not able to sustain crowd control efforts given their preoccupation with election counting duties.
Apart from the 2000 handsets that the company has in stock, another 3500 are being airlifted. Around 5,000 connections will be activated in the next few weeks. The 9,000 connections that MTNL had advertised will be gradually activated by December 1999.
In the proposed expansion in Delhi, MTNL will save costs by utilising the switching infrastructure of its fixed line network. Mr Bhatnagar pointed out that the CDMA base stations could be parented to some of the 40 to 45 large switches in MTNL's network through the V5.2 radio interface.
Even at the current per line cost of Rs 17,000 (which includes all operational costs including spectrum charges and power back-up), MTNL will recover Rs 7,200 in the first year only from rentals, Bhatnagar said.