Telecom PSUs lose cellphone customers

Aug. 19: The two public sector telecom companies BSNL and MTNL are increasingly losing mobile customers to the private operators. MTNL, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai circles, lost 2.11 lakh mobile customers in 2006-07 compared to 1.36 lakh in 2005-06, an increase of 55 per cent. Whereas BSNL lost 28 lakh mobile customers to the private operators in this period.
"While there is surrender of mobile connections, there is also addition of these connections which compensate the loss of revenue due to surrender. Because of this, it cannot be said that there is a loss of revenue borne by BSNL and MTNL," said an official from the telecom department.
However in 2006-07 for the first time, the Delhi unit of MTNL incurred a loss of Rs 4.59 crores. "The main reason for the loss in the Delhi unit is the stiff competition and reduction in landline (connections). A large number of connections in MTNL Delhi are from the legacy system requiring fixed cost to maintain, which are difficult to reduce," said the official. Both the PSU are taking a number of measures to increase their competitiveness.
BSNL has already covered 608 out of the 609 district headquarters in the country. The lone left out is Bhagmara in Meghalaya, which is expected to be covered by September. The company has also planned to cover all tehsil headquarters and villages having a population of 5,000 and above during 2007-08. The future plan envisages augmentation of capacities to cover villages in the next three years.
MTNL will be adding 300 mobile towers each in Delhi and Mumbai to further improve the coverage and the capacity of its network. MTNL has planned to launch Wi-MAX this year. MTNL is targeting to add one million customers each in Delhi and Mumbai this year.