Southern States
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Karnataka
BSNL to introduce WLL in rural areas
By Our Staff Reporter
BANGALORE, DEC. 5. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) will take the Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) technology to rural areas from January.
Five districts -- Bangalore, Tumkur, Hassan, Mysore and Kolar -- will be covered in the first phase in which around 13,000 WLL telephones will be provided to customers, Mr.
K.Padmanabhan, Chief General Manager of the Karnataka Telecom Circle, BSNL, said here on Wednesday.
He said rural areas in the remaining districts would be gradually brought under the WLL network during the next financial year. He noted that out of 1,87,486 customers in the waiting list for telephones in the circle, 1,59,658 were from rural areas. This was mainly due to the habitations being isolated, difficulty in laying cables and so on.
He said WLL telephones were welcomed in Bangalore City when they were launched recently. While 700 fixed WLL connections had been provided, 500 limited mobility sets had also been connected.
The target fixed for new connections in the present financial year was five lakh. Against this, the circle had provided 3,15,865 connections so far. There were 1,59,658 disconnections on various grounds, and the number of net connections provided were 1,56,207. He said connections were being provided on demand in 334 exchanges including district and taluk headquarters. As many as 27,066 villages had village public telephones.
The BSNL had introduced the "Centrex" system in Bangalore, he said. Centrex was a virtual PABX facility offered by the BSNL, which was aimed at corporates with offices spread over Bangalore City. The location of the extensions of the Centrex was not limited to within one building, but they could be provided anywhere in Bangalore City. The Bangalore Telecom District (BTD) had provided 1,600 Centrex lines to the Bangalore City Police, which were still to be inaugurated.
He said Centrex featured free Intra-Centrex calls (extension to extension), access to regular telephone numbers by dialing "0", which would be metered; normal telephone tariff for local, STD and ISD calls; 75 free local calls per extension per month; and a single consolidated bill for STD calls.
Leased line (B-caps)
A Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN) service had been commissioned in the BTD, and it was already for launch on a commercial basis, Mr. Padmanabhan said. The MLLN could provide high speed (n X 64) kbps leased circuits for data customers between Bangalore and major State capitals, such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad.
Mr. Padmanabhan said the new service would prove to be a commercial boon for corporate customers, as its use would result in savings through the avoidance of 2Mbps circuits for lesser data speeds. The new service would facilitate reduction in data circuits provisioning time, effective network performance monitoring or management, and flexible speeds for Internet access.
Additional connection (B-caps)
Mr. Padmanabhan said the last date for applying for the scheme of getting one additional connection for an existing one at Re. 1 in Bangalore City had been extended up to December 12. There would be no registration fee/annual rental deposit for the additional phone as believed by some people. He said a sum of Rs. 800 only would be collected towards installation charges in the first bill.
A hunting facility would be provided with the additional telephone without a registration fee to be paid, enabling the customer to receive all incoming calls, especially when they were on the Internet.
Teleshopping in Mysore (B-caps)
The BSNL had introduced tele-shopping in Mysore city, in which connections were being provided on demand. Any customer desiring a connection could walk into the Teleshoppe at Jayalakshmipura or into the Central Telegraph Office, and register for a new connection. He could collect an instrument of his choice, a telephone directory and a number of his choice there itself, and the connection would be provided within two days.
The scheme would be introduced in seven new telephone registration centres in the BTD by January 2002, Mr. B.R.Baliga, Principal General Manager of the BTD said.
The telephone directory of the BTD would be released on December 12. Directories were also available on CD ROMs for such customers who did not wish to have a printed Directory. CD ROMs could also be purchased at Rs. 50 each. Three more customer service centres had been opened at Chennamanakere, Hosakerehalli and Chandra Layout in Bangalore, he added.
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