The state owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) plans to roll out the much talked about ‘Multi-play’ services offering customers with voice, data and video services by June 2009.
The content provider Smart DG Vision and TBB will take up the expected testing around March and the commercial service may be launched around June next year.
Initially it is planned to be launched in cities like Bhubaneswar and Cuttack and will be expanded to other cities like Rourkela and Sambalpur later.
“We are eager to launch the multi-play services in Orissa. The content provider is finalised and we hope to launch the much awaited service by June after preliminary testing in March 2009”, S C Joshi, chief general manager (CGM), BSNL, Orissa circle said.
Talking to media persons on the sidelines of launching the pre-paid CDMA services in Orissa, Joshi said, all the broadband customers of BSNL are potential customers for the multi-play service.
He said, the company will invest about Rs 75 crore during this year to launch the 3G services in the state. It will be launched by December in all major cities of Orissa. Besides, the company hopes to add 5 lakh new customers in the mobile segment this fiscal and will be investing about Rs 150 crore for capacity expansion.
He said, the Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) services of the company is growing at very fast rate over last three years. The company’s WLL customer base is 1.73 lakh at present. BSNL has chalked out plans to add 1 lakh new customers during the current fiscal. About Rs 50 crore is proposed to be invested for creation of additional WLL capacity.
The company is implementing a project to cover rural exchanges in remote areas with about 25,000 capacities for covering all block head quarters, tehsils and some rural Grampanchayats. While the total broadband capacity is about 85,000, after commissioning of rural project, broadband capacity will increase to 1,25,000 by December 2008.
About the new pre-paid service, Joshi said, it has voice, data, roaming and SMS facility. He also launched the pre-paid starter pack, magic-40 voucher and GPRS pack of Rs 99.
Responding to a query U S panda, General Manager (operations) said, the Orissa circle has already placed bookings for 10,000 caller ID phones with the Kolkata office.
The supply is expected to start by coming December and customers in cities will be provided with caller ID phones in phases. About the disruption of services in the flood affected areas in about 18 districts Panda said, 89 exchanges were affected in the recent flood and 60 of them have already been restored. The remaining will be restored within 15 days.
Out of the 318 Base Transmission Stations (BSTs), 18 were affected in these areas and 9 of them have been restored. Similarly, 11,388 land lines were affected which are being restored. Besides, 40 percent of the mobiles in the flood affected areas have been put back in operation, he added.
