BSNL eyes major gains under MNP regime

Public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is eyeing major gains in its subscriber base following the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) tomorrow.

MNP is being introduced pan-India on January 20 after the service was first introduced in Haryana last year.

“We are confident given BSNL’s vast presence and visibility, the company would be the major gainer,” BSNL UP (East circle) Chief General Manager Om Vir Singh told newspersons here this evening.

He brushed suggestions that the public sector telecom behemoth could be the major loser under MNP regime to the private operators.

UP (East) is one of the biggest telecom circles in India with over 57 million subscribers, of which BSNL has about 19 million subscribers.

 

BSNL is not charging any MNP or new subscriber identity module (SIM) fee from potential subscribers and additionally giving Rs 100 free talk value.

Singh further said, the churning of mobile phone subscribers under MNP was likely to be one odd per cent in the circle.

Meanwhile, BSNL had been gearing up for MNP and is optimising its Base Transceiver Station (BTS) for seamless service.

BTS, commonly known as cell site, is an equipment facilitating wireless communication between user and network.