Kerala BSNL tops telecom service in country

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 6 (UNI) Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) Kerala Circle has topped telecom services in the country with about 90 lakh connections in the basic and cellular mobile sector, Kerala Telecom circle Chief General Manager (CGM) S A Thomas said today.

The Kerala circle was second only to Maharashtra in providing basic service and in mobile service too the circle had gained a lot, Mr Thomas told reporters here and added that Kerala topped the sector when both basic and cellular services were taken together.

He said BSNL, celebrating its sixth anniversary, had provided world class telecom services at affordable prices even in the remotest parts of the country.

On the achievements of Kerala circle in the six years, he said it had so far given 56.47 mobile connections with market share of 60 per cent and basic connections stood at around 39 lakh. It also had about 3.3 lakh Internet customers and 40,000 broadband customers.

Noting that tele-density had increased from 6.7 to 12.2 per 100 population till now, he said within two years it would rise to 40.

BSNL was one of the top service providers in the rural areas, Mr Thomas said, adding the percentage of rural connections had increased from 48 to 67 per cent.

In the Bfone service, he said Kerala was the first state in the country to provide public telephone facility in all Panchayats and villages. Kerala was also the first state having all digital electronic exchanges, he added.

The circle also had the largest waiting list of 2.60 lakh till September. There were immediate plans to clear the list.

UNI PN VR AA 1456