State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd today termed Reliance Jio's entry into the market as a "challenge" for all operators, but said it expects to match the intense competition "tariff-by-tariff".
BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI that the telecom PSU will adopt an aggressive stance on tariffs going forward.
BSNL, which unveiled a promotional unlimited wireline broadband plan that effectively translates into less than Re 1 per GB download cost for very high usage subscribers, a day after Reliance Jio made public its 4G plans - believes it is in a position to match Reliance Jio's tariffs successfully.
"It is a question of survival in the market... There is no other way but to match Jio, tariff by tariff. If tariff of Jio is aggressive, the tariff of BSNL and of all other operators is
also going to be aggressive," Shrivastava said.
Terming Rjio's entry as a "challenge for all operators", Shrivastava said competition is good for consumers as it ushers better offerings.
"As far as challenge is concerned, we cannot wish it away... I believe, BSNL is in a position to match Reliance Jio's tariffs most successfully, because we are incumbent operator. We are landline and optical fibre operator so our broadband tariff rides on our own network... We don't have to start procuring, investing and then come out with offerings," he said.
On whether Reliance Jio's entry would also prompt BSNL into announcing more aggressive tariffs, Shrivastava replied in
affirmative saying "absolutely, there is no doubt".
BSNL offers unlimited night calling on any network in the country between 9 pm to 7 am as complimentary service for all its landline customers. Last month, it announced that its landline subscribers will be able to make free unlimited calls on any mobile or landline number in the country on Sundays.
BSNL has also announced a national unlimited 3G mobile data plan for Rs 1,099 and doubled the data usage limit in some existing plans, to counter competition in the market.
Asked if BSNL too would consider giving free voice calls for its mobile subscribers, Shrivastava said, "We will think about it... In the next 2-3 months, we will see the impact of what is happening in the market. We could consider giving voice free, from our network but after charging some fixed monthly rate... Fixed-mobile convergence may be the basis of free voice calls.
BSNL - which operates landline, mobile and broadband
services across the country - reported nearly six-fold jump in operating profit to Rs 3,855 crore in 2015-16, as against Rs 672 crore in the previous fiscal, while revenue from operations turned out to be highest in the last five years.
Its revenue rose 4.4 per cent to Rs 28,449 crore for the financial year ended March 2016.
The employee remuneration as percentage of the operating revenue was pegged at 54.08 per cent in 2015-16 as against 54.3 per cent for the previous year.
Shrivastava said that in the initial round of talks on the issue, unions have favoured a broader discussion while indicating that they are agreeable to the concept as it would enhance BSNL's productivity and remove issue of the pay being similar despite differences in individual performance.
"Yet, because it is a very sensitive issue, we have thought of taking everyone along... We are saying if you work, the incentive will be there. There is going to be fixed component always...Even for performance related pay there will be a fixed as well as variable component, we are only talking about the variable component here," he pointed out.
