Bpl Scales Down Paging Operations Following Losses

The BPL group has scaled down its paging operations in some parts of the country since it incurred losses from the business.

BPL Wireless Telecommunication Services, which offers paging services under the brand name BPL Connect, is also planning to add more places to its list of 'non-viable locations' in states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, a top BPL official said.

"Basically, we are exiting from non-profitable locations in these states. In the past few years, we had incurred large losses as the government policies never supported the paging industry," the official added. However, he declined to comment on damages caused to the company.

With this, BPL will be joining the bandwagon of major telecom companies who have already scaled down paging businesses. Companies such as Hutchison Max Telecom, cellular operator in Mumbai, has already wound up its paging operations.

Other existing players like Easycall and Mobilink are also not doing well. However, these companies are in the process of entering into related fields in order to make revenues. Paging operators in the country have been demanding reduction in import duty on paging instruments over the past few years. The emergence of cellular operators with customer-friendly packages had forced paging operators to look at alternative business avenues.

Since the group is still expecting incentives from the government for the paging industry's revival, BPL will not exit the business.

The BPL group has been trying to bring more customers for their paging business through innovative marketing and advertisement campaigns. It had also offered a number of value-added services to lure customers who prefer cellular to paging.

The value-added services from BPL included Internet messaging services on its paging network. The company had also unveiled call centre services and STD-free messaging to its paging subscribers.