BSNL landline users to get value added service

Chennai: Looking to shrink its landline customer attrition numbers, state owned telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is looking at plans to launch a new value added service (VAS) every month for landline users.

According to Kuldeep Goyal, chairman and managing director of BSNL, the company realised that its landline average revenue per user (ARPU) has a dependence on VAS revenues, which has lead it to come up with a plan to replicate all services available on the mobile to landline

BSNL offers interactive voice recognition (IVR) based services, and would add more services to the existing portfolio.

It also offers the latest ''triple play'' combination of voice, data and video services, and has launched an IPTV service in Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata.

Goyal said, "Gradually we plan to launch this through a franchisee model in more cities. In such a model, content providers willing to broadcast content approach BSNL and use its infrastructure to do so. Chennai would have an IPTV service in the next few months."

BSNL launched a personalised ring back tone service for its landline subscribers, branded ''BSNL Tunes'', along the lines of mobile ring tones. According to the company, around 22 per cent of its landline subscribers in Chennai already have access to the service, and its launch in cities would follow shortly.

Addressing questions from the media about BSNL''s spectrum efficiency in context of the current subscriber linked spectrum allocation policy, Goyal said BSNL''s spectrum utilisation was "on par" with that of other private companies, and it did not have any surplus spectrum to surrender, if the policy was implemented.

BSNL has a customer base of 6.7 crore, which includes over 3.2 crore landline, 35 lakh wireless local loop (WLL), and about 3 crore mobile subscribers.