BSNL seems to have shed its inactivity! The Government-run firm is signing an agreement with a Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company to buy 10Gpbs-40Gbps bandwidth for $1.2 million a year. The move is to provide reliable internet services in North East.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will sign the agreement for the purpose during his present Dhaka visit. The project execution may take six months after signing the agreement.
This would heavily help the North East, especially in improvement of speed. Currently, BSNL draws bandwidth from West Bengal to provide services to North East.
It another move, BSNL looks forward to a business opportunity in South Africa where it could pick up an equity stakes in one of the country’s telecom service providers. For the purpose, it has sent one of its directors to South Africa. “BSNL has also written to government telecom operators of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations expressing interest in their telecom market,” said a BSNL executive to a national daily.
“We could acquire equity stakes or enter into an agreement or participate in bids in the overseas market. The talks are preliminary but foraying overseas is part of our vision document for the current financial year,” the executive added.
The intention behind such international move is to bring in additional revenue streams. Alongside, the firm will also improve its data services in India. Earlier, BSNL tried to buy Zambia’s lone fixed-line operator Zamtel and Luxembourg-based Millicom's Sri Lankan mobile network. The firm failed to exercise these plans due to its pricing and policy stand.
Recently, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stated that the Government is planning to revive BSNL, which was once a Rs. 10,000 crore profitable firm (during 2007-2008). Mobile services remain to be its major revenue, out of which Rs. 1350 crore comes from data.
