BSNL or Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has revived a lot from its lagging status in the past few months. The state-owned telecom company is finally in the final stages of launching 4G services, with better network coverage than ever before. Moreover, in this rising price market, they have also managed to attract some attention of customers by offering very cheap recharge options. In this situation, Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnab once again expressed the strong possibility that BSNL’s glory is really returning. In an announcement yesterday, which means Wednesday, Vaishnav said that the company’s subscriber decline problem will be completely eradicated by the end of October or November this year. According to him, BSNL has got quite a few positive results in these few days, that once the company’s 4G and 5G networks are rolled out, they will stop losing customers.
Decline in user base is BSNL’s major problem
For more than a decade BSNL It has faced huge challenges in retaining its user base or customer base. Consistently, the company has been seen losing out to private telecom operators. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, BSNL had 103.68 million subscribers in the mobile segment in March this year, giving it a market share of just 9.27 percent. Meanwhile, the private telcos stood in a completely opposite situation – at that time Reliance Jio, Bharati Airtel and Vodafone Idea had a combined market share of 90.73 percent. In this regard, BSNL is said to have lost more than 50,000 customers in March 2023 alone. Even in the wireline sector, their situation is not very different.
BSNL will turn around this year
Industry analysts have blamed the lack of 4G network as the reason for BSNL’s struggles. And if this is the case, it can be expected that it will not be long before the situation of the organization changes. Earlier, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnab, while announcing the third relief package of Rs 89,047 crore, had said that the government-owned company would soon face stiff competition from private telecom operators. A few weeks ago, he said, BSNL has reached the final stage of setting up the 4G network where an average of 200 towers will be installed per day after a three-month trial period. All in all, very soon the company will launch 4G and this will bring back their glory days.
Vaishnav, with practically such an impression, has also highlighted some improvements of BSNL. Recently he said that BSNL is providing more than 1 lakh new connections every month. Their total number of home fiber subscribers increased to 30.88 lakh in May last year. Undoubtedly this is a positive aspect!
BSNL will take over the work of MTNL
Recently the government, debt-ridden MTNL (MTNL) or Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited and decided to hand over all its services or operations to BSNL. In that case BSNL’s strength will increase if it starts serving big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. It is said that the company will launch 4G, 5G network in these places within the next one year.
