India Broadband Forum

Admin

BSNL The life line of India, Bsnl has long been the only tel com provider in majority of
India especially those areas which are a big no no for private operators
even now.Before the entry of private operators in India in the field of
telecom and internet services BSNL has been providing internet connectivity to the majority of rural
India.
Now that things have changed a lot and private operators has been given licenses to provide both
land line phones and internet services there is still a very big difference in approach of private and govt run
services.Private operators are just concentrating and investing in mainly densely populated areas and especially
those areas which are developing fast and can provide profits in a very short term and wont need them to wait for
many years before thier investments become profitable and BSNL on the other hand has a socialist touch provided
by the government and is penetrating deep into the remotest of villages where you will have a hard time reaching
using an all terrain vehicle. One big reason for this is that BSNL already has telephone exchanges in those areas
or is setting up new ones at very fast pace and installing equipment which is adsl enabled and the main driving
force behind this some times loss making investment is the strongly willing government initiative to keep the whole
of India at par with the rest of the cities which are creating a big gap between rural areas and themselves and making
migration more and more lucrative from villages to cities.

Private operators as far as I have seen restrict themselves to major cities and towns and the only reason being that
they dont want to wait for 20 years to start making profits as in rural areas density of population is much less then
cities and they would need a lot more infrastructural investment to cover same number of customers in a city.

Bsnl and private sector companies are very much complimenting each other rather then competing with each other,Rural
areas will have to sit with no other choice but BSNL which is not bad right now but with time when private operators will
be hit with competition from each other in cities they will start cutting prices and bsnl on the other hand enjoys a
monopoly in rural areas and a private operator wont even dare to touch that areas even in the near future so BSNL will
not see much competition when it comes to internet services and as far as my opinion is concerned bsnl will not reduce their
prices in areas which will remain untouched by private sector
May ask who will suffer?

I would love to hear what you have to say about this situation and do you share the same views? If your views differ
please do leave your comments.

cool_techie_tvm

Thanks for the info

(-N-)

i agree on the part where bsnl is 1 of the only internet service providers for rural areas,but i dont totally agree that its bsnl's fault that the prices are getting any lower!the private sector have become really smart!!
in other countries goverment services usually suck & hav high prices!!and the private sectors hav much much better services and prices are usually almost half of the government services!!well india being a developing country an all, the government services are supposed to suck more than the forien ones & the competion should be fierce in the private sector!but the private sectors use the government services pricing as a base and offer the same offers for almost the same price and horrible,worse than the governement services too!

if it wasnt for bsnl broadband i would be living in a stinking city(like 8 hrs of work in the city isnt enuff?)
Thanks bsnl for peacefull sleep at nite!

Admin

Yes I agree with you to an extent but have you noticed that even bsnl broadband and mtnl broadband prices differ a bit from each other and even mtnl mumbai and delhi plans are a little bit different from each other and I see this as the market forces in action and when market forces take control the only way for the prices to go is down south but with bsnl its still not the case as more then 90% of bsnl's broadband customers are in areas where there is no other isp available and even if they lower their prices it will not increase or decrease their market share.

I hope I made some sense here

xwhyz

You are absolutely spot on with regards to the privae players. They are concentrating only on the most urban areas. Even in cities, they target only high end areas, I have experienced it myself where they refused to give connection stating this reason as our area is very sparesely populated and not so posh some time back!