BSNL & MTNL to Launch Broadband Services on Jan 14

BSNL and MTNL will launch the Broadband Services on January 14. Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications & Information Technology will launch the Broadband Services from Chennai. The services will also be launched simultaneously from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata through Video Conferencing. BSNL would provide Broadband Services in 198 cities spread across 24 territorial telecom circles in the country progressively by end of March 2005. In Delhi and Mumbai, the services would be provided by
MTNL.

According to the Broadband Policy India is expected to have 3 million, 9 million and 20 million Broadband subscribers by end of year 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively. BSNL and MTNL are planning to provide 1.5 million connections by the end of 2005 based on ADSL technology leveraging existing copper network. Private sector telecom operators are expected to provide the rest using various technology options. BSNL and MTNL have planned to invest more than Rs. 350 crore for achieving their targets for the year 2005. 

BSNL under its brand name "Data One" is providing 8 tariff plans, 4 each under Home Plan and Business Plan. The minimum monthly charges under the Home Plan range from Rs. 500 to Rs. 3,300 and Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 9,000 under Business Plan, depending upon the bandwidth. MTNL will be providing the broadband services under "Tri Band" in eight tariff plans, the monthly charges for which ranged from Rs. 749 to Rs. 42,999 with bandwidth spanning from 256 Kbps to 2.0 Mbps with unlimited hour-free monthly usages. MTNL is also offering a Free 15 days trial plan (DSL-399) at Rs. 399 at 256 Kbps download speed.