BSNL extends time for VAS bids

The state-owned telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has extended the deadline till January 4 for submitting bids to provide interactive value added services.

The last date for submitting the bids is December 29, which has now been revised to January 4, BSNL, which is one of the largest contracts for value added services (VAS) in the country, said in a communication without stating any reason.

Looking at increasing its revenues from VAS services, BSNL had invited bids to provide such services using the unstructured supplementary service data technology.

Unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) is a GSM service that allows high speed interactive communication between subscribers and applications across a GSM network.

VAS includes non-voice services such as ringtones, videos, music and others and accounts for above six to eight per cent of the revenues of any operator. However, the telecom PSUs lags behind private operators in this space.

BSNL has identified segments like entertainment, sports, astrology, lifestyle, Bolloywood, stocks and commodity information, news, and mobile commerce amongst others, for which the successful bidders have to source contents.