The Hindu : SIM card shortage hits BSNL's cell phone service

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 16, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

SIM card shortage hits BSNL's cell phone service

By Anil Sastry

BANGALORE FEB. 15. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), Karnataka Circle, is unlikely to reach the target of having at least two lakh subscribers within three months of the launch of its cellular phone services as it is unable to get SIM cards in time.

While BSNL has already provided 1.13 lakh mobile phone connections since the launch of the scheme in December, there is an enormous demand for its services, especially for CellOne, the post-paid service. Out of the 1.13 lakh connections, 80,000 are for the pre-paid service, Excel, and the rest for CellOne. The main supplier of SIM cards, Motorola, is unable to supply the enough cards to meet the increasing demand.

The situation is likely to improve within a week, as Motorola will supply 40,000 SIM cards, the majority of them for CellOne, according to M.C. Kalkura, General Manager (Mobile Services), Karnataka Circle. He told The Hindu that ITI is also likely to supply 40,000 SIM cards in the near future, while Motorola would supply the remaining order for 2.2 lakh cards.

However, even if BSNL got the SIM cards by the end of this month, it may not be able to sell all of them by March, the end of the financial year. The target for this year was three lakh connections and BSNL would strive hard to provide as many connections as it could once it got the SIM cards, he said.

According to him, providing 1.3 lakh connections within two-and-a-half months of the launch was a great achievement in itself and, if there had been no shortage in the supply of SIM cards, the target of three lakh connections would have been met.

When asked about the subscriber base, Mr. Kalkura said BSNL had enrolled new subscribers in 50 towns where BSNL was the sole provider of cellular services. In the remaining 71 towns, other service providers were also in the field and it was difficult to identify the subscriber base, he said. However, BSNL was not interested in poaching subscribers from other service providers, Mr. Kalkura said.

The BSNL would augment the number of base transmitting stations (BTSs) in Bangalore soon to improve coverage and increase capacity. The capacity now was 65,000 and 50,000 connections had been provided. As such, there was a need to increase capacity, Mr. Kalkura said, adding that there were 61 BTSs in Bangalore.

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