BSNL’s 3G service soon in 29 cities, towns in State

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will soon launch 3G service in 29 cities/ towns in the State, and is pushing through its webcasting plans.

“We will be launching (upgrading) the service with a higher bandwidth which will add value to the entertainment sector and strengthen video conferencing and other such facilities,’’ TN Sudhindra Kumar, Chief General Manager, Andhra Pradesh Circle, told Express here today.

“With mobile TVs being the order of the day, the 3G service will be grabbed by the entertainment industry and it strengthen the video portfolio,’’ he said and hoped that by March the service would be meeting with big success. BSNL, leading player in broadband service, is also planning to launch webconferencing soon.

“Demonstration of its working has been undertaken and negotiations are on with the corporate sector and other players,’’ he said.

BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh Circle has reached an agreement with CEPT, a USbased company that has developed the software for webcast.

“Those who witnessed the demonstration were enthused by the technology and negotiations with them are in an advanced stage,’’ he said.

Being the only company that is committed to reducing the digital divide between urban and rural areas, BSNL plans to allot 2.5 lakh additional broadband connections in the coming year.

“We have identified 2,600 telephone exchanges across the State where we will install `D Slam’ which is capable of catering to 60 broadband connections each. This will be done in the immediate future,’’ Kumar said.

The public sector telecommunications giant, which has over 80 per cent market share in broadband services, is also trying to catch up on the mobile phone business front and has launched Powerpack prepaid scheme and expects to have 1.5 lakh connections soon.