BSNL to set up 64 towers along metro rail corridors.

Public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has decided to set up 64 BTS (Base Transceiver Station) towers along the metro corridors in the next couple of years to enable high speed connectivity to its users while on the move.

The first of the 39 BTS towers planned in the first phase was commissioned on Tuesday and the BSNL would continue to set up the remaining towers as work on metro rail progresses. Notwithstanding the stiff competition from the private players, BSNL’s Hyderabad Telecom District has recorded a “slightly positive” growth in its revenues during the just-ended financial year registering a revenue of ₹ 510 crore compared to ₹ 509 crore of the previous fiscal.

The public sector telecom major has targetted to improve its revenue by at least 3% during the current fiscal and has planned to take advantage of a bouquet of services launched for the consumers recently. According to BSNL HTD principal general manager K. Ramchand, BSNL presently occupied fourth place in the two Telugu speaking States and it had launched several initiatives to attract more consumers into its fold.

It was decided to enhance services relating to the existing 2G and 3G connections while steps were underway to launch 4G services soon. “BSNL is in negotiations with global companies for offering 5G connectivity and the process of setting up the necessary infrastructure will commence soon,” he said adding new Wi-Fi hotspots at 51 locations were planned to be set up with 381 access points in addition to the 42 hotspots commissioned with 85 access points.

This was in addition to the Fixed Mobile Convergence facility and multimedia video conferencing facilities proposed to be provided by the telecom major in the coming days. Efforts were on to replace the electronic exchanges with new generation network and switching. The equipment was commissioned in 42 exchanges.

The remaining exchanges would be covered during the current fiscal where in customers could avail facilities like limited fixed mobile telephony enabling them to utilise the broadband and fibre to the home connections as cordless phone without any additional charges.

The BSNL had introduced international Wi-Fi services wherein customers could access high speed data through wi-fi hotspots across the globe. “Customers can avail unlimited internet access with high speed connectivity in over 100 countries on payment of prescribed charges. The international Wi-Fi services are much cheaper when compared to costs involved in utilising mobile data in roaming,” he said.

THE HINDU