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BSNL in Orissa now has many plans on land line, cell phone and broadband, including certain combinations of them. Following is a recent ad.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

Broadband services in the town and other parts of the district would soon be launched after standard tests, said SM Talwar, chief general manger, Telecom, (CGMT) Orissa circle.

Following is a big excerpt from a New Indian Express report on this.

As many as 432 towers are about to be set up in remote areas of the State, where there is no mobile coverage, under the “Mobile Infrastructure Project” rolled out by the Union Department with the help of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

The fund has been generated from levy of 5 percent of revenue earned by telecom operators and is to be utilised on propagating affordable telecom services to people in rural and remote areas.

The number is part of the total 7,871 towers planned for India through the ambitious project.

Half of the 432 towers would be complete and operationalised by March 2008.

Telecom majors like BSNL and Reliance Communications Infrastructure Ltd. (RCIL) have shouldered the responsibility in creating the infrastructure for increasing penetration by erecting the towers. The State has been divided into four clusters with BSNL taking charge of the Coastal, Northern and Western Orissa with 316 towers and RCIL to erect the rest 116 in southern Orissa.

Controller of Communication Accounts, Orissa, and project administrator Kamalakanta Panda said the project entailed two parts, one installation of passive infrastructure like erection of towers and equipping it with necessary things and power and the next where service providers would utilise the tower by installing their equipment to provide signals.

The USOF would be extending Rs 1.5 lakh subsidy per site per annum to RCIL and Rs 0.75 lakh to BSNL till five years. “The whole objective is to give increase teledensity in rural areas. It was realised that subsidising only fixed line services would not be effective and hence, was decided to extend it to mobile services. The subsidy would mean an investment of about Rs 100 crore in Orissa over the duration,” Panda said.

Joint Commissioner Kashinath Jha said that at present around 75 percent of Orissa was covered by mobile connectivity. This initiative would increase coverage up to over 95 percent. The rest would be taken care of during implementation of the Phase -II where thrust would be on expansion of broad band connectivity in rural areas. The phase is likely to go underway within six months.

I initially read about it in a New Indian Express report, whose excerpts we give below. I could not believe it. But then I googled the net and found some links which make the above mentioned New Indian Express report believable.

The public sector telecom major rolled out evolution data optimised (EVDO) card to provide wireless broadband Internet with speeds up to 2.4 Mbps along with the network interface card (NIC) with 144 Kbps speed. Built in the plug to surf form, the cards can be attached to the USB port or PCIMCI slot of the desktops or laptops to access Internet.

The cards would provide unlimited Internet access with fixed charges of Rs 250 a month and can be purchased outright or acquired on a monthly rental basis.

Based on CDMA-2000 technology platform, the EVDO card would be immediately available in Bhubaneswar and its outskirts like Khurda but the NIC card can be used anywhere. Three EVDO base transmission system (BTS) systems have been commissioned and 10 more are underway. Thirty more are to be added this financial year enabling expansion to other cities, Chief General Manager, Orissa, SM Talwar said.

… Speaking to media persons, Talwar said BSNL had gone on an overdrive to increase its presence in mobile and Internet, particularly broadband, sector in Orissa. … Broadband penetration, which has been a sore point for the company, is set to look up too. Launched in 2005, the broadband capacity in the State is a mere 15,500 and connections given are around 14,350. But, infrastructure is being spruced up on a war-footing with around 70,000 ports installed across the State. Broadband facilities would be made available in all telecom districts and sub-divisional headquarters, Talwar added.

Business Standard has some more details on this. Following is a short excerpt.

The customers can have unlimited internet access through NIC/EVDO cards at additional fixed monthly charges of Rs 250 only. The consumers have the option of direct purchase or monthly fixed charge basis.

While the monthly fixed charge for NIC card has been fixed at Rs 150 per month it is Rs 200 for EVDO card. The direct purchase of NIC card costs about Rs 4,500 and EVDO card costs about Rs 6,500.