Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Present and Future

BSNL (then known as Department of Telecom) had been a near monopoly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service provider in the country (MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New Delhi). During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result subscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection.The corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom service providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. DoT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Government policies, where in all state-owned service providers were required to function as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the society. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed miserably to achieve this and India languished among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatisation of DoT. The efficiency of the company has since improved. However, the performance level is nowhere near the private players. The corporation remains heavily unionised and is comparatively slow in decision making and implementation.Management has been reactive to the schemes of private telecom players.Over the past five years BSNL's management is not able to absorb Group A(ITS) officers,who are working in BSNL as borrowed staff.This has considerably reduced the ability of management to take risks and get rewarded in open telecom field. Though it offers services at lowest tariffs, the private players continue to notch up better numbers in all areas, years after year. BSNL has been providing connections in both urban and rural areas. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled cost-effective broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's around 60% of market share of ISP services.

2007 has been declared as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL is in the process of providing 5 million Broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL has upgraded existing Dataone (Broadband) connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s without any extra cost. This 2 Mbit/s broadband service is being provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$ 11.7 per month (as of 21/07/2008 and at a limit of 2.5GB monthly limit with 0200-0800 hrs as no charge period). Further, BSNL is rolling out new broadband services such as triple play.
BSNL is planning to increase its customer base to 108 million customers by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the target appears achievable.
BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India. BSNL has recently bagged 80% of US$ 580 m (INR 2,500 crores) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.

On the 20th of March, 2009, BSNL advertised the launch of BlackBerry services across its Telecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G services in select cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the only players to provide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed auction of 3G services for private players.BSNL shall get 3G bandwidth at lowest bidder prices of Rs 18,500 crore,which includes Rs 10,186 crore for 3G and Rs 8313crore for BWA.[One crore is 10 million.]BSNL management has paid this money under protest seeking refund.

BSNL has also launched a Entertainment Portal called BSNL Hungama Portal from where subscribers could download contents like music, music videos for free and also download or play various games online. Only Tamil,Kannada,Telugu & Hindi are provided at present. Hopes are there that the database could be expanded. BSNL charges a fixed monthly subscription fee for this function.