BSNL targets 50-55% market share by '07

BSNL is targeting a marketshare of 50-55% to achieve its share of 120 million phone connections out of the 250 million phone connections target by 2007 announced by the government.

"We will have to achieve a marketshare of 55-55% to be able to achieve our part of the government's telephone connection target", A K Sinha, CMD, BSNL said here at a global seminar on communication and computing organised by IIT Kanpur.

"The government's target is 250 million, out of which 125 million phone connections have to be provided by both the PSUs -- BSNL and MTNL. Out of that our share share is 120 million in three years, which is to provide 20-25 million connections each year", Sinha said.

Government has set an ambitious target of increasing the total number of fixed and mobile phone connections in India to 250 million by 2007 from about 95 million now.

BSNL operates all over the country except Delhi and Mumbai. Private operators have to provide 125 million connections if the target of 250 million connections is to be achieved.

Sinha said BSNL was trying to achieve a rural tele-density of 3% from the current 1.6% by 2007 and added it hoped to achieve a rural tele-density of two per cent by 2005-end.

The PSU was gearing up to wipe out the waiting list in rural areas by March next year, with 80% of the same in the next two months, Sinha said.

The waiting list for BSNL phones in rural areas stands at 13.5 lakh. BSNL has already provided 1.3 crore rural telephones and 5.11 lakh village public telephones across the country.

Sinha added that the psu was undertaking massive expansion plans for its mobile and CDMA based fixed wireless services.

"CDMA based fixed wireless service has the advantage of greater last mile reach that is very crucial in rural areas", the CMD said.

Sinha said BSNL already had a two million capacity of CDMA based fixed wireless lines that have capability of 14.4 kbps data rate.

"Plans are underway for expanding this base by a further one million lines through CDMA 2001x that offers data rates up to 144 kbps. Most of these lines are planned to be deployed in rural areas. CDMA technology also has upgrade paths to w-cdma which offer higher data rates", Sinha said.

On GSM service, Sinha added "in the fourth phase of our mobile expansion, BSNL plans to go in for 15 million more GSM lines of which order for 12 million has already been placed".

"This network adopts edge-based GSM technology which provides data rates upto 384 kbps that will support applications such as streaming video", Sinha said, adding further plans for 25 million lines were also underway.

The CMD said 3-G based GSM technology was fast emerging to provide broadband connectivity at rates upto 2 mbps. However, several issues such as licensing, spectrum, handset costs and popularity of service will "influence the actual deployment of the 3-g networks", Sinha added.