Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Chennai Telephones plans account-free Internet service

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI JUNE 6. Next in the list of value additions packaged by Chennai Telephones to perk up the popularity of its basic telephony service is `Account-Free-Internet'.

Targeted for launch within a month, the service will enable a fixed line telephone to access Internet without subscribing to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) account.

In other words, the wired line when connected to the computer, would log on to the World Wide Web and the cost of the access has been fixed at 10 paise per minute, according to S.S. Iyer, Chief General Manager, Chennai telephones. The access charge would be in addition to the call charges, he said. During the specified hours at night, 10 minutes usage would be calculated as a call. The respective telephone number would serve as the password for the users.

On getting the approval from the BSNL headquarters, Chennai Telephones would enter into a memorandum of understanding with a private firm that would provide both software and hardware interface for the service, he said today.

Refuting that there were large-scale surrender of basic lines, as a fall-out of the alternative package and the tariff changes announced by BSNL last month, he said Chennai Telephones was confident of building on its subscriber base by laying greater emphasis on value-added services.

To a query on subscriber complaints of delays in effecting `shifts' of landlines, he said such a situation mostly arose when the telephone user moved residence to far-flung suburbs and it was being addressed with the provision of fixed WLL (wireless in local loop) telephones.

The General Manager-Marketing, A. Subramanian, said the phone-on-phone service, essentially meant to provide new connections, at some of the exchanges were accepting shift requests.

On the proposed expansion of its Direct Internet Access Service (DIAS), the availability of which was now restricted to the exchanges in Anna Road and Anna Nagar, Mr. Iyer said the service would be extended to 12 more exchanges within a month. The service, he added, would be useful to those who want to use their telephone and access the Internet simultaneously.

Chennai Telephones has increased the availability of its Excel pre-paid cellular service cards. About 20,000 of the post-paid CellOne cellular connections were being converted into pre-paid cards to meet the demand — since Excel launch on April 4 the BSNL entity had sold over 52,000 cards. Nearly 7,400 post-paid connections, launched on April 16, have been sold.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Chennai Telephones plans account-free Internet service
• Hawala racket busted, 4 held
• Myanmarese link to ATS-manufacturing lab established
• 'Information system to track goods trains movement soon'
• Exhibition on Russian universities
• Star Sports, ESPN blacked out
• 3 detained under NSA
• 30,000 persons treated for dog bite
• Let CB-CID probe police excesses: rights panel
• SSLC, OSLC mark certificates to be distributed on June 9

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu