Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

BSNL customer base improves

Special Correspondent

Plans afoot to step up cellular network, says official

VISAKHAPATNAM: BSNL-Visakhapatnam has improved its customer base to 2.4 lakhs, inclusive of 85,000 cellular connections. Informing this to newsmen here on Thursday, General Manager of Visakhapatnam Telecom District P. Nagaraju said that this was made possible due to various schemes introduced by the BSNL during Dasara and Deepavali. There were many schemes available for landline, Internet and cellular subscribers. "Our teledensity is now 6.28, almost on par with the national average of seven," he said.

In fact, the teledensity was steadily on the rise from 3.86 in 2000-01 to 4.17, 4.55, 5.18, 5.86, 6.06 in the next four years in that order, he disclosed. On cellular network, he said there were 76 cell towers in the district and there were plans to install another 50 to 60 towers by next year. There were several schemes which people, particularly groups, could utilise, he said.

Net connections

Mr. Nagaraju also announced that for the benefit of broadband users, the bandwidth was increased from 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps from January 1, to make it almost eight times faster now. It was expected that the waiting list of some 1,200 would be cleared by March this year after expansion of broadband equipment. There were 5,400 broadband connections working now, and exclusively landline connections for dialup Internet users with a rental of Rs.249 a month were being offered without any access charges, he said.

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