BSNL launches new service delivery platform for 3G customers

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) today launched its new service delivery platform 'BSNL Live' - a web portal that would offer videos on demand and movie streaming for its 3G customers for the first time in the country.

"The portal has movie streaming, games, full track songs, video clips and it will be a single window shop for all the mobile value added contents," BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal told reporters here today.

He further said the technical platform hosting 'BSNL Live' was a Service Delivery Platform (SDP) which, as a mobile operator, BSNL was the first to deploy.

It  was built to meet the needs of mobile network operators, media companies, service providers etc. It has been developed with the assistance of Ericsson, he further said.

This service which was launched today would now be available in over 100 cities of northern and eastern parts of India including Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, UP, Uttrakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Andaman and Nicobar.

"After this 760 more cities countrywide are planned to be covered progressively in the next 6 months," he said.

The launching ceremony also saw the movie premier of 'Jail' on BSNL 3G mobile through BSNL Live portal in the presence of film Director Madhur Bhandarkar, Actor Neil Nitin Mukesh, and actress Mughdha Godse.

The end user price points of the contents like games will be Rs 35-100, songs Rs 15, video Rs 10 to Rs 20, video on demand at Rs 40 and wallpapers at Rs 10.

Moreover, the video category will have contents like an exclusive preview of forthcoming films, footage of celebrities, interviews  etc.

However, Goyal said BSNL has been able to rope in just 13,000 3G mobile customers since its launch.

"We have found that several areas were not fully covered under 3G services and we are now improving the coverage," he said, adding, "the company is focusing more on value added services which will help attract more customers to 3G mobile," Goyal said.

At present, Value Added Services constitute 5-6 per cent of the total revenue of BSNL, he said.