BSNL to offer recharge facility via SMS

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the major service provider of cellular mobile telecom services in the country, is to introduce multi-pronged methods to recharge or renew the talk time coupons for their pre-paid mobile customers.

Talking to reporters here, L Kannan, general manager (mobile services), Tamil Nadu Circle, said soon the renewal or recharging process for the pre-paid customers would be entrusted to their franchisees. Entitled as Channel Top Up Franchisees (with the Nortel-Ericcson Switches working at Hyderabad), the franchisees would recharge the talk time on receipt of prescribed fees across the counter.

With about 80 franchisees located across the Tamil Nadu circle, the services would be extended on receipt of some advance money. The franchisees would be debited as and when he recharges the demanded amount from the pre-paid customers.

Prior to this, the BSNL will introduce recharging facility for their CellOne customers through SMSes (short messaging services). Under this scheme, the customer would send one SMS reading the alphabets RC followed by the secret code number printed on the scratch card to 3733.

One BSNL customer can recharge the coupon of another customer too by sending SMS 'TRC, the mobile number followed by the secret code of the scratch card.'

On receipt of the message, the server located at the billing switch at Trichy (which covers the entire Tamil Nadu, Chennai circle and as well as Kerala) would arrange for the rechargement and convey back the message to the customer via SMS.

At present, the Tamil Nadu circle has 2.67 million mobile users, of which 1.76 million are in the pre-paid category and the remaining 3.06 lakh comprise the post-paid category.

The Trichy INN (Intelligent Network) covers six SSAs (secondary switching areas) which include Tamil Nadu circle, Kerala and Chennai, with an installed capacity of 1.6 million connections.