Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Apr 11, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Apr 11, 2003 |
|
|
|
|
|
Info-Tech
-
Telecommunications BSNL loses 1.6 m landline users in one year G. Rambabu
NEW DELHI, April 10 DESPITE its best efforts, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has not been able to stem the rapid surrender of landlines. As many as 1.6 million customers gave up their connections in fiscal year 2002-03. According to official sources, the trend of surrenders which started as a trickle close to two years ago had now gathered momentum. As a result, BSNL's yearly addition of direct exchange lines (DEL) have continued to fall woefully short of target. The DEL target for the previous fiscal had been set at 55.90 lakh. Even as the actual number of new connections had been around 50 lakh lines, the surrender of phones had pushed the net addition to only 34 lakh. The company is at a loss as to how to deal with this peculiar situation. Significantly, the offcials, one of the main reasons identified behind "surrenders" was the rapid growth its own cellular services - CellOne - which was launched across the country over five months ago. There had been such a great demand for its cellular services - which are amongst the cheapest in the country - that close to 2.25 million customers had signed up as of end-March 2003. This rapid growth in its subscriber base was already forcing the private operators such as Bharti, Hutch and Idea Cellular to come out with new and innovative schemes to attract customers. In fact, the initial capacity of its cellular networks placed at 1.5 million connections was surpassed in February and the company had to upgrade its network to meet the growing demand. The sources said that while it was difficult to put a number on the BSNL landline customers who had migrated to its cellular services, internal surveys had pointed towards a strong correlation. Many of the existing landline subscribers had been surrendering their phones, getting a refund on their deposits and using its to pick up the cheaper cellular connection. The other reasons the company cited included economic factors and the delays in shifting of phones. Many customers had given up their second landline connection because of "unaffordability" even as STD/ISD tariffs are crashing. Moreover, quite a few of them prefer to surrender their connections instead of seeking a transfer of phone when they shift residence. In any case, the company had now appointed a consultant to narrow down on the cause and give a detailed study report on the trend, the sources noted. Meanwhile, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) too is faced with a similar problem in Delhi and Mumbai. The company conducted a study to analyse this situation and identified as many as 12 reasons for this. The study found that close to 10 per cent of the people who surrendered their connections had migrated to the private service providers, while 29 per cent had done so due to economic reasons.
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | Home |
Copyright © 2003, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|