Very soon the state run telecom operator will be signing 2G intra-circle roaming package Reliance Jio Infocom, Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel. Their rate of adding subscriber is faster than any other industry. Chairman Anupam Shrivastava says that they estimate that this year Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will post revenue more than INR 30,000 crore which is nearly 3-4 % more than the earlier year.
In response to what was their key initiative for improving network and subscriber base he replied that during 2006-2012 due to a number of reasons BSNL could not procure equipments though the market was expanding. They therefore missed the voice bus. Then in 2013 they started getting equipments. They have installed 24,000 BTS (base transceiver station) towers in the last two years and are planning to add another 21,000 within a year. They say that their coverage and network have improved.
In June 2015 some schemes like pan India roaming free was introduced in Mumbai and Delhi. They calculated a revenue expence of INR 150 crore yet they continued their plan till customers started coming to them. Before 2015 they were adding around 7-8 lakh customers every month, but from December 2015 they have succeeded in adding nearly 20 lakh customer per month. This was mainly due to free roaming and other services. February report states that they were ahead of industry growth due to subscriber addition on monthly basis. That was calculated by putting rural and urban customer together. For the first time BSNL had become mobile number portability positive.
In response to their estimated, revenue expectations they said that they were expecting to cross INR 30,000 crore by the end of March 2016. This figure includes mobile, landline and enterprise business. They say that their debt to equity ratio is 0.13% which is lowest in the industry.
