MTNL to announce cellular tariffs by next week

MTNL to announce cellular tariffs by next week

JAN 1: MTNL has planned to start the services with one lakh subscribers each in Delhi and Mumbai during the first year of launch, Sharma said, adding that most of the ground work and base stations were already in place.

The new CDMA based limited mobility network would bereplacing the existing network covering entire Delhi for which additional base stations have been set up, he added.

MTNL has also decided to retain the existing tariffructure for its limited mobility expansion network with monthly rental of Rs. 600, Rs. 1.20 for three minute outgoing call and free incoming calls.

The limited mobility subscribers would, however, have topay Rs. 10,000 as security deposit towards the cost of handset.

In the expansion plan, 30,000 additional connectionswould be provided in New Delhi.

For its proposed cellular services, Sharma said thesubscribers would have the choice of buying their own handsets compatible to GSM technology.

The compant is talking to host of bandwidth providers including some in the United States for acquiring additional bandwidth to expand its internet operations in the country, a top company official said here today.

MTNL has not been able to expand its internet network dueto limited bandwidth being provided by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), MTNL Chairman and Managing Director Narendra Sharma told reporters.

Asked whether the option of acquiring additionalbandwidth from VSNL was not commercially viable, Sharma said "since we have other option, we should explore all possibilities."

He, however, refused to give names of the bandwidthproviders, saying " we cannot disclose the names till the deals are finalised".

MTNL has about 19,000 internet subscribers in Delhi and26,000 in Mumbai.

Sharma said after finalising the deal with bandwidthproviders, the internet subscriber net would be expanded.

Meanwhile, the corporation has launched its webmail"BOILMAIL" on the pattern of other services like Hotmail and Yahoo mail, Sharma said.

The services would initially be available to allexisting MTNL internet customers and would subsequently be made available to customers of other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), he said.

The corporation also started online internet renewalpackage on the concept of online registration.