Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (abbreviated BSNL) is an Indian state-owned telecom

munications company headquartered in New Delhi, India. It was incorporated on 15

September 2000 and took over the business of providing of telecom services and
network management from the erstwhile Central Government Departments of Telecom
Services (DTS) and Telecom Operations (DTO), with effect from 1 October 2000 on
a going concern basis. It is the largest provider of fixed telephony, largest br
oadband services provider with more than 60% Market share, and fourth largest mo
bile telephony provider in India. However, in recent years the company's revenue
s and market share have plummeted into heavy losses due to intense competition i
n the Indian telecommunications sector.[2][3]
BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider (CSP). It had
a customer base of 117 million as of January 2014.[4] It has footprints througho
ut India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, which are m
anaged by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).
Contents [hide]
1 Services
2 Administrative units
3 History
4 Challenges
5 3G coverage
6 Recognitions
7 Competitors
8 Quality of Service
9 Censorship
10 See also
11 References
Services[edit]
BSNL provides almost every telecom service in India. Following are the main tele
com services provided by BSNL:
Optical Infrastructure and DWDM : BSNL owns the biggest OFC network in India. Al
so the DWDM network is one of the biggest in the world. The DWDM equipments purc
hased in open tender at BSNL are mainly of United Telecoms Limited ( UTL) ) make
, which was declared lowest cost in competitive bidding. Rest DWDM equipments ar
e from Huawei. The SDH equipments are mainly from Tejas Networks, Huawei, ZTE, E
CI, UT STAR etc.
Market Share : As of 30 November 2013, BSNL had 12.9% marketshare in India and s
tands as 5th Telecom Operator in India and 67% market share in ADSL Services.
Managed Network Services : BSNL is providing complete Telecom Services Solution
to the Enterprise Customers i.e. MPLS Connectivity, Point to Point Leased Lines
and Internet Leased Lines .
Universal Telecom Services : Fixed wireline services and landline in local loop
(WLL) using CDMA Technology called bfone and Tarang respectively. As of 30 June
2010, BSNL had 75% marketshare of fixed lines.
Cellular Mobile Telephone Services: BSNL is major provider of Cellular Mobile Te
lephone services using GSM platform under the brand name Cellone & Excel (BSNL M
obile). As of 30 June 2010 BSNL has 13.50% share of mobile telephony in the coun
try.[5] It has 95.54 million customers using BSNL mobile.[4]
WLL-CDMA Telephone Services: BSNL's WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) service is a se
rvice giving both fixed line telephony & Mobile telephony.
Internet: BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up connection (as
Sancharnet through 2009[6]) as Prepaid, NetOne[7] as Postpaid and ADSL broadband
as BSNL Broadband[8] BSNL held 55.76% of the market share with reported subscri
ber base of 9.19 million Internet subscribers with 7.79% of growth at the end of
March 2010.[citation needed] Top 12 Dial-up Service providers, based on the sub
scriber base, It Also Provides Online Games via its Games on Demand (GOD)
Intelligent Network (IN): BSNL offers value-added services, such as Free Phone[9
] Service (FPH), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling (ACC)

, Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rate Service (PRM), Univer
sal Access Number (UAN).
3G:BSNL offers the '3G' or the'3rd Generation' services which includes facilitie
s like video calling, mobile broadband, live TV, 3G Video portal, streaming serv
ices like online full-length movies and video on demand etc.
IPTV:BSNL also offers the 'Internet Protocol Television' facility which enables
customers to watch television through internet.
FTTH:Fibre To The Home facility that offers a higher bandwidth for data transfer
. This idea was proposed on post-December 2009
Helpdesk: BSNL's Helpdesk (Helpdesk) provide help desk support to their customer
s for their services.
VVoIP: BSNL, along with Sai Infosystem - an Information and Communication Techno
logies (ICTs) provider - has launched Voice and Video Over Internet Protocol (VV
oIP). This will allow to make audio as well as video calls to any landline, mobi
le, or IP phone anywhere in the world, provided that the requisite video phone e
quipment is available at both ends.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNLWiMax: BSNL has introduced India's first 4th G
eneration High-Speed Wireless Broadband Access Technology with the minimum speed
of 256kbit/s. The focus of this service is mainly rural customer where the wire
d broadband facility is not available.
BSNL Landline:BSNL Landline is a major role in inda . Its numbers start with the
prefix "2" .
Administrative units[edit]
BSNL is divided into a number of administrative units termed as telecom circles,
metro districts, project circles and specialized units. It has 24 telecom circl
es, 2 metro districts, 6 project circles, 4 maintenance regions, 5 telecom facto
ries, 3 training institutions and 4 specialized telecom units.[11]
History[edit]
BSNL, then known as the Department of Telecommunications, had been a near monopo
ly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL w
as the only telecom service provider in the country. MTNL was present only in Mu
mbai and New Delhi. During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run orga
nization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result su
bscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection. T
he corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of
Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom s
ervice providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. D
oT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Governm
ent policies, where in all state-owned service providers were required to functi
on as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the societ
y. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed to achieve this and India languis
hed among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 200
0 after the corporatisation of DoT. The corporatisation of BSNL was undertaken b
y an external international consulting team consisting of a consortium of A.F.Fe
rguson & Co, JB Dadachanji and NM Rothschild - and was probably the most complex
corporatisation exercise of its kind ever attempted anywhere because of the qua
ntum of assets (said to be worth USD 50 Billion in terms of breakup value) and o
ver half a million directly and indirectly employed staff. Satish Mehta, who led
the team later confessed that one big mistake made by the consortium was to rec
ommend the continuation of the state and circle based geographical units which m
ay have killed the synergies across regions and may have actually made the organ
isation less efficient than had it been a seamless national organisation. Vinod
Vaish, then Chairman of the Telecom Commission made a very bold decision to prom
ote younger talent from within the organisation to take up a leadership role and
promoted the older leaders to a role in licensing rather than in managing the o
perations of BSNL. The efficiency of the company has since improved, however, th
e performance level is nowhere near the private players.[citation needed]
The corporation remains heavily unionised and is comparatively slow in decision

making and its implementation, which largely acts at the instances of unions wit
hout bothering about outcome. Management has been reactive to the schemes of pri
vate telecom players.[citation needed] Though it offers services at lowest tarif
fs, the private players continue to notch up better numbers in all areas, years
after year. BSNL has been providing connections in both urban and rural areas. P
re-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL
has also unveiled cost-effective broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targe
ted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's around 60% of market
share of ISP services.[12]
Year of Broadband 2007
2007 was declared as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL announced plans for p
roviding 5 million broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL upgraded Data
one connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s without any extra cost. This 2 Mbi
t/s broadband service was provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$11.7 per month (
as of 21 July 2008 and at a limit of 2.5GB monthly limit with 0200-0800 hrs as n
o charge period). Further, BSNL is rolling out new broadband services such as tr
iple play.[citation needed] BSNL planned to increase its customer base to 108 mi
llion customers by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector i
n India, the target appears achievable.
BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India. BSNL has recently secured 80% of
the US$580 m (INR 25 billion) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.[13
]
On 20 March 2009 BSNL advertised the launch of blackcherry services across its T
elecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G services in select
cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the only players to pro
vide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed auction of 3G service
s for private players. BSNL shall get 3G bandwidth at lowest bidder prices of Rs
185 billion, which includes Rs 101.86 billion for 3G and Rs 83.13 billion for B
WA.
As of December 2011, many other private operators have started rolling out their
3rd Generation (aka 3G) services alongside and are enjoying some success in the
ir campaigns to get market share. While BSNL still maintains its connectivity st
andard and expands to many more areas including rural areas with their 3G servic
es. Also the network infrastructure has been upgraded from to provide 3.6 Mbit/s
to 7.2 MBits/sec. It is enjoying a slow but somewhat steady success in gaining
market share in this regard.
The introduction of MNP(Mobile Number Portability) which is an service that lets
the consumer change wireless service providers while retaining their actual mob
ile number, BSNL has seen many customers opting for this service to move away fr
om the services to other operators. Despite this as the Indian Wireless market g
rows BSNL still has a loyal base of subscribers and many more subscribers being
added to it every day. This provides customer services for 95 million as of June
2011.
BSNL announced the discontinuation of its telegram services from 15 July 2013, a
fter 160 years in service. It was opened to the public in February 1855; in 2010
it was upgraded to a web-based messaging system in 2010, through 182 telegraph
offices across India.[14][15]
Challenges[edit]
During the financial year 2008 09 (from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009) BSNL has ad
ded 8.1 million new customers in various telephone services taking its customer
base to 75.9 million. BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel is standing at a c
ustomer base of 62.3 million. However, despite impressive growth shown by BSNL i
n recent times, the Fixed line customer base of BSNL is declining. In order to w

oo back its fixed-line customers BSNL has brought down long distance calling rat
e under OneIndia plan, however, the success of the scheme is not known and BSNL
faces bleak fiscal 2009-2010 as users flee.[16]
Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and various T
elcos are rolling out attractive schemes and are providing good customer service
s. But situation as on 2012, BSNL will be third largest operator (Service) and N
o 1 access operator in the country. As per the TRAI Report 2011-12, BSNL became
the most trustworthy brand due to its loyalty towards customers and its rule.
Access Deficit Charges (ADC, a levy being paid by the private operators to BSNL
for providing service in non-lucrative areas, especially rural areas) has been s
lashed by 20% by TRAI, w.e.f. 1 April 2009.[17] The reduction in ADC may hit the
profits of BSNL.
BSNL has started 3G services in
ers. It has planned to roll out
2010-11. according to users and
than other operator and also it

290 cities and acquired more than 600,000 custom

3G services in 760 cities across the country in
big sources BSNL's 3G data speed is much higher
is competitively cheap.

Broadband services: The shift in demand from voice to data has revolutionized th
e very nature of the network. BSNL is poised to cash on this opportunity and has
planned for extensive expansion of the Broadband services. The Broadband custom
er base of 3.56 Million customer in March'2009 is planned to be increased to 16.
00 million by March 2014.[18] On 13 June 2012, BSNL employees participated calle
d off an earlier planned nationwide strike against discriminatory policies of BS
NL management upon promise by Management to resolve the Demands of the protestin
g unions.[19]
3G coverage[edit]
BSNL paid the Indian government Rs. 101.87 billion for 3G spectrum coverage.[20]
As of 2011, BSNL offers coverage in over 800 cities across India.[21] BSNL laun
ched in 2012 a 3G wireless pocket router named Winknet Mf50. It was released in
collaboration with Shyam Networks. Winknet Mf50 enables the connection of multip
le devices to the internet using a single sim card.[22]
Recognitions[edit]
The Brand Trust Report published by Trust Research Advisory ranked BSNL in the 6
5th position of the list of Most Trusted brands.
Competitors[edit]
BSNL competes with 10 other mobile operators throughout India. They are Airtel,
Aircel, Idea, MTNL, MTS, Reliance Communications, Tata DoCoMo, Videocon, Virgin
Mobile and Vodafone.
Quality of Service[edit]
BSNL goes by the motto "Connecting India, faster"[23] and displays the same at t
heir homepage. BSNL offers seamless coverage in almost all urban and rural areas
of India.
Censorship[edit]
See also: Internet censorship in India
BSNL enforces censorship of online content as per orders of Indian Department of
Telecom.
Bayimg.com blocked by orders of Department of Telecom on BSNL network
See also[edit]
Portal icon
Delhi portal
Portal icon
Companies portal

BSNL Broadband
Bsnl Mobile
Sancharnet
Telecommunications Statistics in India
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j "Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss". BSNL. Retri
eved 10 June 2014.
Jump up ^ "DoT puts up roadblock in BSNL s IPO plans". Profit.ndtv.com. 11 June 20
12. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
Jump up ^ Special Correspondent (31 July 2010). "BSNL reports first-ever loss of
Rs. 1,823 crore". Chennai, India: Thehindu.com. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
^ Jump up to: a b [1]
Jump up ^ The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators at the Wayback Mach
ine (archived October 10, 2010)
Jump up ^ "Sancharnet Dialup Packages". Archived from the original on 1 May 2009
. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
Jump up ^ NetOne
Jump up ^ BSNL Broadband
Jump up ^ "BSNL Champion Trendy 531 Phablet Price - Specifications - Features".
Mobiles Bug. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
Jump up ^ (9) Comments. "BSNL Launches VVoIP". Techtree.com. Retrieved 17 Septem
ber 2012.
Jump up ^ "BSNL Units".
Jump up ^ Reliance Life Insurance at the Wayback Machine (archived July 1, 2007)
Jump up ^ "BSNL bags 80% of Rs 2,500-crore rural mobile telephony project". The
Hindu (