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State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will migrate 4 lakh connections in Maharashtra to Next Generation Network (NGN).
NGN will equip BSNL with capabilities to transport all sort of media such as voice, video and streaming. From the user point of view, this will mean better quality of services.
Addressing a press conference here, Union Minister for Telecommunications & IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the migration to NGN will happen across Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Goa, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Kalyan and Nanded.
BSNL will also set up a pre-paid mobile intelligence network in Pune. “This will bring in a lot of benefits to pre-paid mobile users,” the Minister said.
174 Wi-Fi hotspots BSNL is also setting up about 174 Wi-Fi hotspots across 58 cities in the country.
The other State-run operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) is expected to turn profitable next year, Prasad said. He said the company’s operating loss has come down to ₹70 crore from ₹140 crore in one year. MTNL had posted a ₹2,900-crore loss in financial year 2014,
“MTNL has promised me that in fiscal 2016-17, like BSNL, it will also post profits," he added.
MTNL is laying optical fibre to provide infrastructure support to Mumbai’s police’s surveillance plans to install 6,000 cameras at 1,800 locations across the city. The telecom operator will also use this network to provide high-speed broadband to one lakh homes in Mumbai, he added.
He also said the Centre is pushing for electronic manufacturing in India, under the ‘Make in India’ initiatives.
"About ₹11,700 crore was the total investment proposals when I became the minister in June 2014 but till December-end about ₹1.18 lakh crore have been committed,” Prasad said.
He also said that the payments bank from India Post, expected to start operations by March 2017, has received proposals from 40 domestic and global companies.
Call centres in towns The Centre, as part of its ‘Digital India’ initiative, is in the process of finalising a plan for call centres or business process outsourcing (BPO) centres to be opened in smaller, ‘mofussil’ towns.
The government would be setting up 48,000 seats across the country, he added.
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