Karnataka - Bangalore

BSNL, two private players join USO

BANGALORE: Karnataka Circle of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) will roll out three lakh mobile phone connections in rural areas by October this year.

BSNL will erect 321 towers in 26 districts across the State for this. The project is part of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) scheme launched by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Apart from BSNL, two other private cellular service providers will erect 106 towers offering over one lakh mobile connections under the USO scheme. In all, there will be 427 towers in remote areas offering over four lakh mobile connections. Although different service providers erect these towers, all the three enlisted service providers will share the towers, thus offering choices to consumers to choose between the companies.

A senior BSNL official told The Hindu that the towers would strategically be located at places which hitherto had no telephone connectivity.

DoT had invited tenders for providing mobile connectivity through 7,871 towers in 500 districts throughout the country under USO a few months ago.

All the towers were expected to be erected and commissioned by December 2008. Under the second phase, DoT aims at erecting 11,000 towers throughout the country to offer over 11 million mobile connections, tenders for which would shortly be called. To execute the USO scheme with regard to mobile connectivity, Karnataka Circle had been divided into four clusters. While BSNL had to erect towers in three clusters, private players would erect it in one cluster. As of May this year, seven towers had been erected.

USO was conceived in 2002 realising the need for telephone penetration to rural areas and hinterlands. The funds for the scheme were raised through universal service levy at the rate of 5 per cent of the adjusted gross revenue of all telecom service providers in the country.

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