‘CellOne’ Launched In Karnataka

‘CellOne’ the new countrywide cellular service from BSNL Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd was launched in Karnatka by the state Chief Minister SM Krishna on Monday.

Krishna launched the service by making a call to his hometown Somanahally in Karnataka. Krishna also inaugurated BSNL’s call center in Bangalore by dialing the call center’s number. He also launched BSNL’s Voice Mail Service in Karnataka. These two services would attend to customer services for the newly launched ‘CellOne" service. CellOne's prepaid cellular services ex-cel would however be launched on Karnataka Rajyotsava day ie on Nov 1st.'CellOne's' Karnatka launch was in line with 'Cell One's' national launch in Lucknow by the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Saturday.

BSNL is expecting to have around 2 Lakh connections in Karnatka by March next year. The south zone network has been set up by BSNL alongwith with Motorola at a cost of Rs 120 Crores. The network comes in with a lot of advantages which is expected to give tough competition to other cellular phone operators in the country. The ‘CellOne’ service has many other added features which include a countrywide roaming, south-zone roaming for pre-paid, free incoming calls from BSNL Mobile Network for both pre and postpaid services, wide coverage of National highways passing through Karnataka, coverage of Bangalore-Chennai rail route alongwith the coverage of many other rail routes. The system is connected through BSNL’s own optical fiber and the service also has a unified messaging which facilitates the handling of E-mail, Voicemail and Fax by the phone. 

Under the pre-paid scheme the initial charges for taking the connection would be Rs 200 for the initial SIM value and activation. Airtime charges for outgoing local calls to BSNL PSTN/Mobile Network within the BSNL circle would be Rs 2.4 per minute during peak hours from 8 am to 10pm and Rs 2 per minute during the off peak hours within the BSNL circle. For calls to other phone networks within the BSNL the tarrif would be Rs 3 per minute during and after peak hours. For calls made outside the circle using BSNL’s long distance network there would be no charges for outgoing calls but to other networks besides BSNL’s the charges would be Rs 3 per minute. For incoming calls the charges would be Rs 1.2 during the peak hours but the won’t be any charges during the off peak hours.

Under the post paid scheme different plans have been earmarked like the Plan-225 with a monthly rental of Rs 225, Plan-325 with a monthly rental of Rs 325 and RTP-225 with a monthly rental of Rs 225.Under these plans different tarrif rates have been earmarked touching a maximum Rs2.4 for outgoing calls. Each scheme comes with a different tarrif rate applicable as per the peak and off peak hours with a miximum of Rs 2.4 charge per minute and the minimum of 50 Paise per minute for outgoing calls. However under the different schemes for post paid services incoming calls would be free from BSNL's mobile phone service network from across anywhere in the country. 

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