BSNL starts ring-back tone services on landlines

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) today launched the Personalised Ring Back Tone (PRBT) services on landline telephones for customers in Hyderabad.

This facility is likely be extended to about 2.65 lakh customers in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad on a fixed monthly subscription of Rs 25, T N Sudhindra Kumar, Chief General Manager, BSNL told media persons.

Kumar said that BSNL plans to spent Rs 500 crores this year for providing more and more mobile phone services in the society and various number of Cellular Base Stations (Mobile Towers) are being constucted at many locations to improve the quality of service.

Referring to reports that mobile signals radiated by the cell towers affect the health of general public, he said, "there has no authentic report so far".

"The Radio frequency emissions from mobile phones and base stations are some 50,000 times lower than the levels at which the first health affects begin to be established. The mobile hand set radiates only 02 to 0.6 watts of power, which is lower than the power radiated by Microwave, Radio transmitter and TV transmitter," Kumar said.

"The International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has fixed radiation standards based on several decades extensive RF Research results across the world, which has been endorsed by World Health Oranization (WHO).

"These standards are adopted by most of the contries across the Globe including India. The recommendations of ICNIRP ensures and confirms that there is no substantive or convincing evidence of biological effects that could harm the persons's health for all segments of population," the CGM said.

"The Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which is a regulatory body, have also declared that there is no definite conclusive evidence that the public health is affected by radiation emitted by Mobile Phone and Base Station," Kumar said.

The PRBT service on landline is at present for EWSD and & 5ESS Exchanges and shortly would be launched in other 12 SSAs where EWSD and 5ESS switches are available, he added.