BSNL to procure 93 mn GSM lines to serve rural population

State-owned telecom operator BSNL will procure 93 million lines to extend coverage of GSM mobile services to all the villages having population more than 1,000 persons.     

Through this expansion, BSNL will also introduce value added services like mobile TV, mobile broadband, MMS, location based services etc. This was announced by Communications and IT Minister A Raja while addressing the Members of the Consultative Committee of Parliament attached to his Ministry in New Delhi today.     

The Minister informed that value added services like mobile banking, mobile advertisement, tele-education and lost mobile tracking system are also planned to be launched by BSNL during the current year. BSNL is going to provide wireless broadband services Wi-Max through the franchisee route.     

Raja informed the Committee that BSNLs mobile network is being upgraded to 3G level, for which order and equipment are likely to be progressively commissioned by July 2009. BSNL has planned to provide high-speed data service (up to 2.4 Mbps) on CDMA WLL network. It has also planned to commercially launch prepaid services on WLL from this month.     

The Minister said that 8,000 mobile towers would be erected by the end of this year under Phase-I of the shared mobile infrastructure scheme. Another 11,000 towers are planned under Phase-II of this scheme.    

 Government will initially connect 5,000 blocks in the country by wireless broadband soon after the allocation of the spectrum. The UPA government has set a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010 and 750 million connections by 2012, Raja said.