BSNL Broadband- What is going wrong?

BSNL Broadband- What is going wrong?

BSNL may finally be able to pat itself on its back. People are praising it-it’s got an average user rating and it is slowly catching up in the absence of any viable alternatives. Airtel, the perennial looser has decided to stay shut and still offer its measly 128K line as Broadband- however, user reviews have been excellent for nil downtime of services.

What BSNL hopes to achieve by its plain vanilla offering? It seems that there has been a threat from the communications ministry that they would divest the last mile to private players. Oh, well I really wonder that Maran wants to shut down his office without any portfolio. The idiots that rule us are still smart enough not to let go of their free perks and would rather suck on them slowly like leeches. Therefore, it appears that BSNL is scrambling to put up “value added services” to its BB offering.

I am surprised at their assertion because at the back of this is the imminent threat of Reliance waking up to roll out their own BB service. It would be hard to pen down any firm date. I personally believe that Anil Ambani has very limited options as of now. They would try to promote their Fixed Wireless phones in a big way. However, with TRAI playing spoilsport, you can expect them to turn on the heat on Broadband roll out.

BSNL needs to worry. Frankly because its current roll out is ADSL and not ADSL2 as promised. Which means that they seriously need to upgrade their exchanges. I feel that they might be more selective in the “competitive markets” rather than small towns and cities because that is where the real revenues lie. Oh well, they might just have enough sense to get the first mover advantage.

This post was submitted by Dr. Abhishek Puri on the Broadband Blog on Techwhack.