BSNL mobile subscriptions soar

If numbers are any indication, then Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has outperformed Hutch, the market leader in the Gujarat cellular services sector, in March by adding 1.45 lakh subscribers to its network as against Hutch's only 30,000.

BSNL was able to add only 1,000 customers to its subscribers base in February this year as it had exhausted its capacity in the state to provide new pre-paid connections. The state-owned company has added a new capacity in the region and has been issuing new connections for a month now.

The huge spurt in the subscriber base has also catapulted BSNL into the second spot in Gujarat's GSM cellular market, according to pfigures provided bythe Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI). From a subscriber base of 5,21,505 in February, BSNL has touched a subscriber base of 666,949, behind Hutch which has a subscriber base of 12,56,915 as of March 2005.

Ashok Golas, who holds the additional charge of chief general manager, Gujarat circle of BSNL, said that the increase in the subscriber base reflects BSNL's popularity here.

"We have already made 3.50 lakh connections capacity available in the last fiscal and will add another 10 lakh capacity in the ongoing fiscal," he said.

Even as it could not meet the additional demand for cellular connections, BSNL had chalked out a strategy in June last year to add an additional capacity of 13.50 lakh connections in the state.

To be implemented in two phases, 3.50 lakh new connections capacity has been made available in the first phase, the remaining ten lakh connections capacity is scheduled to be made available in the second phase.

BSNL also replaced Lucent Technologies with Alcatel India for upgrading the existing cellular service network in Gujarat.

Lucent echnologies,which set up the existing network, will not upgrade the capacity. Instead, Alcatel India has been awarded the contract and the company has already taken up the task of increasing the capacity of BSNL's cellular network in the state.