State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) on Tuesday ruled out an increase in tariffs in the near future, Robert Ravi, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), said.
"We can clearly say we are not going to increase our tariffs in the near future," Ravi said on the launch of the company’s new logo and a slew of services on Tuesday.
BSNL was the only private telecom operator in India that did not raise tariffs in June, when larger rivals Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea increased them by 10–21%.
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel also started charging for 5G services on unlimited usage plans, beginning the trend of monetisation of 5G in India.
BSNL gained 2.9 million mobile phone users in July while others lost subscribers, according to the telecom regulator's data issued last month.
The company had 88.5 million mobile phone users, or about 7.5% of the nation’s total.
The new services, seven in total, were launched by communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
BSNL has come up with its own 4G telecom stack, which can be migrated to 5G, Scindia announced, labelling it a huge accomplishment for India.
"Our hope is that BSNL will always be at the forefront of tech innovation," Scindia said.
The minister said BSNL will have 100,000 4G sites by the middle of next year and graduate some sites to 5G by then.
Ravi said BSNL has already started offering 4G services in test mode and is focusing on ensuring customer satisfaction. A full-fledged commercial launch is expected this calendar year.
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