BSNL to provide 'multi-play' broadband service in AP

Vijayawada, Jun 7 (UNI) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will provide a new 'multiplay' broadband service connection to all its customers in Andhra Pradesh in the next two months, a BSNL official said today.

About 40,000 connections will be given in the first phase which have the features of an IPTV, video and internet, company Chief General Manager S Ramalingam told newspersons here.

The customers can have access to these services by paying the monthly tariff separately, with the equipment costing about Rs 43 crore.

He said 200 channels would be provided through IPTV, adding that the multiplay service has been tested six months ago at Pune on a trial basis.

Mr Ramalingam also commissioned 1,000 lines equipment meant for the city for providing multiplay service connections. There were 73,000 existing broadband connections in Andhra Pradesh and four lakh more connections would be added during this fiscal, he added.

Talking about cellular connections, Mr Ramalingam said about 16 lakh connections were existing and 16 lakh more connections would be provided in 2007-2008 by setting up 1,300 towers across the state.

On the Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) service, he said in order to cover every nook and corner, about three lakh connections would be added to the present 1,57,000 connections in the state, for this 456 towers would be set up.

He said urban WLL in seven cities like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Tirupati, Chittor, Guntur and Warangal would be replaced by new technology CDMA 2001X.

Once it was commissioned, prepaid, SMS and high speed internet would be possible for urban WLL customers.

UNI