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Q: W hat will be the major growth drivers for the telecom sector in coming years? W hat are the measures taken by the company to explore opportunities?

A: The major growth drivers for telecom sector will be data services and VAS in the coming years. BSNL has already taken the leadership position with launching of broadband as early as Jan 2005 and capturing the market of more than 54% as on date. BSNL has planned to offer broadband services using various technologies like ADSL 2+ on wire-line, Wi Max, 3G, EVDO on wireless and VSAT services. BSNL has already projected to be the major partner in fulfilling the government initiatives to take broadband benefits to 20 million users by 2010.

Q: W hat are challenges that you foresee? How much growth you expect in the next five years?

A: One of the main challenges in rolling-out the telecom services in the remote and rural areas are – non-availability of electricity. In the next five years, 3G services will grow at the rate of 1 million p.m. whereas the voice services will continue to grow at around 10 million p.m. The major challenges in expansion of broadband in the coming years will be the availability of customer premises equipment, that is, PC (desktop/laptop) at the consumer end. This on two fronts; one is the PC manufacturers in India are very less and second the PC cost is approximately 5 times to 8 times of the per capita annual income of an Indian. Alternate technologies like using television as a monitor and using shared computing devices are being worked out. As India is spread in rural areas, the broadband penetration can be driven by contents which are available in local languages. At present, the contents are mostly in English and in some places contents are being developed in local languages. But the present status is not very encouraging.

As per the Government of India target, we expect 20 million broadband connections by 2010 and our estimates says that broadband may grow at a rate of around 5 million per year after 2010 thereby we may expect a total broadband customer base of around 35 million by 2013.

Q: As regards to rolling out 3G services what is your strategy? What are the challenges associated with it?

A: BSNL has got plans to roll-out 3G services in all major cities of India in its area of operation. Initially, BSNL has planned to cover 751 numbers of cities in all zones. The services shall be rolled out progressively in these areas starting from Dec, 2008.

One of the main challenge for 3G services in India will be entry barriers because of high cost of handsets/service and non-availability of spectrum for 3G services.

Q: W hat difficulties is your company facing while serving the rural customers? What are your strategies to overcome?

A: One of the main difficulties which BSNL faces in the rural areas is the problem of electric supply as none of the wireless services can be provided without electricity. BSNL has been providing solar power system for the Village Public Telephone (VPTs) which are mainly funded by USO (Universal Service Obligation). We have already procured broadband equipment which getting installed in more than 25,000 village exchanges which is expected to cover around 150,000 villages by Mar, 2009. As the need grows, BSNL would like to cover all inhabited villages by appropriate technologies.

Low demand of new service like broadband and a low paying capacity will be the major problem areas for telecom operators to spread broadband in rural areas. We feel that the state government with their programmes like, SWAN, e-Panchayat, Project ‘Arrow’ of post offices, etc, may become major drivers to spread telecom services in rural areas.

Q: How the adoption of new technologies like WIMAX, IPTV and so on does help the telecom companies to increase their customer base??

A: BSNL has already started deploying IPTV on pan-India basis. We are already working in 9 cities and plans to take the IPTV to approximately 50 cities. We have a plan initially to cover 100 cities by Mar 2009 and would like to extend IPTV services to other cities depending on the performance and experience in the first 100 cities. IPTV provide services like normal television channels, deferred viewing of television channels, video on demand and T-commerce facilities which are much more than normal television viewing, hence we hope that IPTV will be a success both in urban and rural areas. This also help in retaining land-line customers and we also expect an increase in combined ARPU of landline, broadband and IPTV.

Q: W hat are your views on active and passive infrastructure sharing?

A: Earlier telecom companies were permitted to share only passive infrastructure like towers, repeaters, shelters and generators. After acceptance of TRAI recommendations, DoT allowed service providers to share active infrastructure like electronic components such as antennas, feeder cables, nodes, radio access network, transmission system and backhaul. The move will help telecom companies to lower tariffs and reduce their expenditure by well over 50%. Active infrastructure sharing will play a major role in expediting the rollout of wireless network across the country, especially in rural India. Where rollouts expenditure is on higher side.

Q: W hat changes have you witnessed since the last decade and what is your vision for the next 10 years?

A: We have seen that people are migrating from voice to data. Therefore, BSNL has also started concentrating on data related telecom service offerings. We have seen that lot of new products are being introduced by various manufacturers which are IP enabled. That is the reason the whole world is moving from IPV4 to IPV6 technology thereby enabling most of the gadgets which we forecast to be IP enabled to get integrated with telecom network. We hope that in next 10 years offices will see a total elimination of papers and working will shift 100% on computer. We perceive that lot of personal gadgets like car, refrigerator, microwave oven, television, etc. will be IP based and can be operated using IP enabled from anywhere. Therefore, we see that there will be huge demand of data bandwidth and large population of India will be using broadband either directly or indirectly.

Q: Brief us about your expansion plans and how you are planning to raise funds for the same?

A: Roll out of 3G Services will boost our services. We are ready with 3G rollout in North-East zones. We hope that 3G would be launched by Dec, 2008 in these zones and by Jun 2009 in South & West zones. There is a plan to launch CDMA based mobile voice & data services with the existing base stations and along with expansion in coming year. Also, a lot many value added services on GSM/CDMA/Broadband & Fixed lines will be introduced for customers’ choice and satisfaction. We have launched IPTV service in nine cities and plan to extend it to 100 more cities in near future.