Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

BSNL cellular service in Chennai by year-end

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI July 18. Chennai Telephones will launch its cellular service on the GSM platform by the year-end.

According to Kranti Kumar, Director-Planning and New Services of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, ``the tariff will be lower than that charged by the other three mobile telephony companies'' in the city.

Admitting that there had been a delay in the launch of the project, Mr. Kranti Kumar told The Hindu here that it was a matter of time before the necessary equipment for the project arrives. Since the equipment, supplied by Motorola, had already been validated and tested by other BSNL telecom circles, the time required for Chennai Telephones to launch the service would be comparatively less. Hinting that the tariff of the service would be the USP of the proposed service, he said, ``a total of 1.30 lakh mobile telephone connections have been sanctioned for Chennai Telephones''. Apart from the inherent advantages of BSNL, including the freedom from dependence on others for interconnect, a key feature of the service would be the vast marketing network, Mr. Kranti Kumar said. ``Our GSM packages will cover all highways and railway facilities''.

On the plans for popularising the Wireless in Local Loop (WiLL) telephone services in Chennai, he said, ``the sanctioned strength would increase from the present 5,000 to 20,000 lines in three months. It would touch 37,000 by the end of this financial year''.

This is bound to hearten the prospective subscribers of the WiLL services of Chennai Telephones as there were indications there would be a long waiting period for the `poor man's mobile telephone', with low rental tariff.

On the likely clash of business interests in promoting both WiLL and GSM, Mr. Kranti Kumar said WiLL would be targeted at a different customer segment, primarily housewives and students.

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