BSNL to seek expressions of interest for 3G wireless services franchices

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) plans to shortly seek expressions of interest for franchises for its third-generation (3G) wireless services, according to chairman Kuldeep Goyal.

Goyal said today that the firm's 3G users are expected to increase to 4 million by March 2011 from the current 1.3 million.
With a subscriber base of 72 million, BSNL  is the country's fourth-largest mobile phone operator.

Goyal also said the telco would have have 4 million 3G users by March 2011, up from 1.3 million at present.

In a separate development, the company today, also tied up with Bangalore-based mobile applications and technology firm Fifth C, to offer BlacMail - a push email service to all its customers.

According to a Fifth C press release, BlacMail does not need GPRS connectivity required of all other push mail services. With push mail services, now a key mobile user need, the company has plans to deploy BlacMail as a mass-market VAS service as it does not require the customer to have a GPRS data plan.

According to K Krishnamohan, founder and CEO of Fifth C, the company developed BlacMail with the objective of crashing the cost and performance barriers to enable true push mail experience for all mobile users in India. He added that Fifth C was happy to partner with BSNL in enabling this key capability for its customer base thus leveraging the breadth of its network coverage in 2G and 3G geographic reach across India.

According to a BSNL spokesperson BlacMail pushmail platform was unique in spanning the requirements of the broad customer segments that comprise the BSNL base including students in metros who own inexpensive phones in metros and small businesses in Tier 2/3, to consumers on its 3G network.