City phones normal by today

Telecom services in the city will be fully restored by March 23 night, S P Chakravarty, chief general manager of BSNL and Calcutta Telephones, promised here today.

This follows withdrawal of the 8-day agitation by 50,000 BSNL executives today.

"Officers have started restoring disrupted services and network situation is nearly normal," Chakravarty claimed.

To provide some relief to customers, BSNL has decided to extend to bill payment date for post-paid customers to March 29 from March 21 now.

Extension for pre-paid customers has been extended to March 31.

"Calls of duration less than 15 seconds shall be treated as unsuccessful calls and would therefore not be charged," said Chakravarty at a seminar on 'New schemes of BSNL' organised by Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI).

BSNL and Calcutta Telephones revenues stood at around Rs 95 crore and Rs 52-60 crore in the West Bengal circle.

BSNL has decided to provide free 'centrex' facilities to all telephone lines in a single housing complex or building.

"All the telephone lines in a single building or housing complex will be provided centrex facility by which any calls among those lines would not be charged," Chakravarty said. The facility will be provided free of cost. BSNL will increase the number of mobile phone base stations from 168 to 225 in two months.

BSNL aims to provide broad band connectivity to around 1 lakh customers by the year end from 3000 now.

The capacity building will be complete within June 2005. BSNL is also working on a special facility for internet users through 'hot spot (WiFi)' wireless LAN at 48 important locations including airports, hospitals, hotels for lap-top users.