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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Bhaskar Hazarika
NEW DELHI: With intense competition among cellular operators in the Assam and the Northeast Circle, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is not ready for the back seat.
The operator on Monday announced that the year 2007 has been declared as ‘the year of Northeast to bring about reliable and better connectivity in the region’. The operator plans to scale its subscriber numbers by the year-end.
In the Assam Circle, the operator is carrying out a massive drive to add more subscribers to its network. A BSNL source in Guwahati informed that the operator has identified a couple of districts for expansion of its mobile offerings. “Two alternative optical fibre cable routes are being developed to offer better services in those areas. We have identified the Central Assam district as one of the potential area for expansion. We are planning to add more than 70,000 mobile subscribers by year-end in that area,” the source informed.
Chief General Manager (CGM) NE circle, A K Gupta, today informed that the operator is aggressively working out ways to increase the tele-density in the region. “Around 15 per cent of people in the country subscribe to landline or mobile phones while this ratio is only six per cent in the region, which is much lower compared to most of the circles. The tele-density in Punjab is about 75 per cent while in Chandigarh city it is 100 per cent. We are working on increasing the tele-density,” Gupta said.
As of December 2006 the cellular statistics of BSNL in the Northeast Circle stands at 3,63,302 subscribers with Aircel in the second position with 2,27,073, Bharti Airtel-1,87,002 and Reliance at 1,32,130.
In the Assam Circle the statistics stands as BSNL- 5,02,904, Bharti Airtel- 4,58,507, Aircel- 4,47,849 and Reliance- 3,19,935.
It may be mentioned that BSNL was the second operator in both the Assam and the Northeast Circle. Reliance was the first telecom operator in the region to start its operations in 1996. BSNL has launched its CellOne mobile in 2003 in the Assam circle.
© CyberMedia News
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