State-run telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has announced it would offer per-second billing plan to customers. Kuldeep Goyal, chairman & managing director at BSNL, said this new tariff would be applicable for local and STD calls and would not enforce any restriction on total usage or monthly rental.
BSNL also launched another plan which would offer local and STD calls to any network at 49 paise per minute and would be applicable to all 2G and 3G networks. It also announced a lower tariff 3G services plan, under which voice calls would be charged at 30 paise per minute.
Several telecom operators, including Vodafone, Airtel, Reliance and Aircel have introduced per-second billing plans.
“It took us longer time to offer this plan compared to other operators as the implication of this tariff on our sales are huge. I expect that higher minute usage by customers would more than compensate for the loss in sales due to lower tariffs,” Goyal said.
Meanwhile, Goyal said BSNL is not looking to call new bids for a 93 million GSM line order. However, he confirmed BSNL has ordered 8 million 2G GSM lines from Chinese firm Huawei, which would be put up in the southern Indian states. He also said that Ericsson has been short listed for providing lines in the northern and eastern states.
Zain talks
BSNL may open direct negotiations for a stake in Kuwait’s Zain if its exclusive talks as part of a consortium fail. BSNL and MTNL are part of a group led by little known Indian company Vavasi which aims to take a 46% holding in the Kuwaiti firm from shareholders including the Kharafi Group.
Goyal said on Friday that Vavasi had an exclusivity clause for talks. “If that ends, and suppose this proposal does not go through, and there is a possibility of having a direct negotiation, we would like to look at it.”
Comments