Mobile firms woo away BSNL's PCO subscribers

Mobile telephony has penetrated deep into rural India and now there are data to back it up.

BSNL, the stateowned telecom provider, has lost a huge 21,305 rural and PCO subscribers in

the Pune region over the past two years.

There has also been a drop in the number of residential and commercial landline subscribers in

Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, which lost 48,416 subscribers to come down to 3.67 lakh

subscribers.

Attributing this loss to the growing use of mobile phones, BSNL chief general manager

(Maharashtra circle) Chandraprakash said, “Mobile penetration has grown a lot over these

years. The subscribers have shifted to mobile phones including that of the BSNL.”

However, BSNL seen growth in its user base in the government sector and its own offices,

which have increased from 4,836 to 6,273 in two years.

BSNL, along with Indiacom, has released a phone directory for the Pune, the only region to do

so for the 17th consecutive year. BSNL’s attempts to bring out a directory in other circles have

failed. “We have tried to publish a directory in the other regions of the Maharashtra circle, but we had poor responses for our tenders,” Mr Chandraprakash said.

The Economic Times

Panel on spectrum allocation norm set up

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 6 In a bid to arrive at a compromise formula with agitated GSM operators, the Communication Ministry has formed a new committee to review the subscriber linked spectrum allocation criteria specified by the Telecom Engineering Centre.

The move comes after existing GSM operators criticised the TEC’s report, which asked operators to pack in more subscribers before they become eligible for additional spectrum. TEC’s report had put out all existing operators out of contention for additional spectrum. The new committee will have representatives from the industry, including Cellular Operators Association of India and Association of Unified Service Providers of India.

“A committee is being constituted in DoT to recommend the revision of present ‘Spectrum Allocation Criterion’ to licensed operators based on the subscriber figures etc. in a scientific and practicable manner.

“The committee will have outside experts also. The committee will give its report within three weeks for finalisation of spectrum allocation criterion for licensed operators,” an official press release said.

The Government had accepted in principle the technical report of TEC on Spectral Efficiency on October 31. However, with the formation of the new committee, further allocation of spectrum to any category shall be determined on the basis of recommendations of this committee and directions of TDSAT, if any.

Pending applications for grant of new Unified Access Services licences will be processed as per the existing policy.

Source: The Business Line

Telecom News dated 07-11-2007