BSNL or Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is India’s largest Communication Service Provider (CSP), and seventh largest in the world. Previously known as DoT (Department of Telecommunications) when it was under federal government control, it became a corporation in 2000. BSNL has footprints in entire India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi which are managed by MTNL, and commands over 40 million landlines and 19.03 million mobile subscribers.

Type: Communication Service Provider
Country: India
Availability: National Except Delhi & Mumbai
Owner: The Government of India
Key people: A.K. Sinha (CMD)
Website: BSNL.co.in

History

The foundation of Telecom Network in India was laid by British sometime in 19th Century & history of BSNL is linked with the beginning of Telecom in India. In 19th century and for almost entire 20th century, the Telecom in India was operated as a Government of India wing. Earlier it was part of erstwhile Post & Telegraph Department (P&T). In 1975 the Department of Telecom (DoT) was separated from P&T. DoT was resposnsible for running of Telecom services in entire country until 1985 when Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) was carved out of DoT to run the telecom services of Delhi and Mumbai. Subsequently in 1990s the telecom sector was opened up by the Government for Private investment, therefore it became necessary to separate the Government’s policy wing from Operations wing. The Government of India corporatised the operations wing of DoT on October 01, 2000 and named it as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

BSNL Present & Furture

Since its corporatisation in October 2000, BSNL has been actively providing connections in both Urban and Rural areas and the efficiency of the company has drastically improved from the days when one had to wait for years to get a phone connection to now when one can get a connection in even hours. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled very cost-effective Broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. BSNL plans to add 20 million subscribers annually for the next three years, and long term target of 120 million lines by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the number will be easily achievable. Today, BSNL is the No. 1 Telecommunications Company and the largest Public Sector Undertaking of India with authorized share capital of $ 3977 million and networth of $ 14.32 billion. With latest digital switching technology like OCB, EWSD, AXE-10,FETEX, NEC etc. and widespread transmission network including SDH system up to 2.5 Gbit/s, DWDM system up to 80 Gbit/s, Web telephony, DIAS, VPN, Broadband and more than 400,500 data customers.