BPL mobile for licence in 21 telecom circles

Mumbai Sept 8: India's fifth largest telecom service provider BPL mobile communications has applied for a unified access service licence (UASL) in 21 telecom circles of the country.

Presently, the company operates in Mumbai circle only, which has subscriber base of 1.1 million.

The group has applied for the licence through its wholly owned subsidiary shippingstop.com, which provides GSM service in Mumbai circle. The company was acquired by Ruia's of the Essar group from Rajeev Chandrashekhar in 2005.

S Subramaniam CEO of BPL mobile communication said ''This is a part of our strategic growth plan as we are in the process of increasing our footprint outiside Mumbai''.

'' We have increased our cell sites in city of Mumbai from 500 to 1000 this year and want to replicate the same in other circles when we obtain the licence''.

However, this move by BPL has raised questions over Ruia's relationship with Vodafone. Vodafone Essar, formerly known as Hutchison Essar, where Essar has a 33 per cent stake, had recently bought Hutchison's 67 per cent telecom shareholding.

However, getting the approval for the licence might be tough since there is a long queue where already six companies has already applied for the GSM licence in all the 21 circles out of total 23.

UNI