Growth Of Communication Sector n323z

GROWTH OF COMMUNICATION SECTOR Growth of Communication Sector The Communication sector is amongst the fastest growing in the country. It work in all major markets around the world. Communication technology’s products and solutions are accepted globally. The first year of the new millennium has been a year of turbulence, tragedy, terrorism and slow-down in the world economy. The Indian Communication industry has weathered this storm well. It is indeed creditable that the industry and services in India has reasonably continued its robust growth in the year 2003-04 This sector has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy History of communication in India A major reorganisation of the department took place in April, 1925. The s of the Indian Posts and Telegraphs were reconstituted to examine the true fiscal profile of the department. The attempt was to find out the extent to which the department was imposing a burden on the taxpayers or bringing in revenue to the Exchequer, how far each of the four constituent branches of the department, the postal, telegraph, telephone and wireless were contributing towards this result. It was further examined whether the rates charged from the public for the various services were inadequate or excessive.The Posts and Telegraphs, like all public and private undertakings, was a victim of the universal financial and economic depression which crashed on the world in 1930. During 1931, numerous economy measures had to be introduced according to the advice of the Posts and Telegraphs Sub-Committee to the Retrenchment Committee presided over by Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Jr. Naturally, the adoption of the various measures of retrenchment could not but have an adverse effect on the emoluments and interests of the personnel of the Department. From the beginning, P&T set up was run on welfare lines. Profit was not the motto. The annual report of the department for 1931 said "It is the accepted policy of the Government that the department should be so istered that there should be neither any substantial profit nor any substantial loss on its working under normal conditions. As has already been indicated, the achievement of this ideal has not proved possible owing mainly to the exceptional economic and trade conditions of recent years. One of the main contributory causes was the revision and improvement of pay of the great bulk of the employees of the department in recent years. This was undertaken with the approval of and indeed under pressure by the Legislative Assembly. While the department is commonly spoken of as a 'commercial' one and though as far as possible it is guided by the commercial considerations in the regulation of its business, it must be realised that in many directions it is debarred from observing strict business principles. Many of the purposes which it is required to serve are unremunerative and notably, in matters relating to the employment and control of staff, the department is bound by a large volume of statutory and other rules, doubtless necessary for the regulation of a public service, but which in the aggregate involve many restrictions of a kind unknown to private commercial concerns. After the implementation of the Federal Financial Integration Scheme of 1st April, 1950, the istration of the entire network of telegraph and telephone systems of the nation, including those that previously existing in the former princely states became a major adventure. In 1950 the number of Telephone Exchanges absorbed from princely states was 196. These systems which were working with different degrees of efficiency could fit into the general telecommunication network. The installed capacity of these 196 exchanges was 13,362 lines with 11,296 working

connections. Soon after the absorption an attempt was made to improve their technical efficiency by replacing obsolete and unserviceable equipment and lending well-qualified and experienced staff. Simultaneously, isolated exchanges were integrated with the general pool. The more complicated task was acquisition of the staff. Their final absorption into the different cadres of service in Posts and Telegraphs was a major step. FROM P&T TO DoT Till 31st December, 1984, the postal, telegraph and telephone services were managed by the Posts and Telegraphs Department. In January 1985, two separate Departments for the Posts and the Telecommunications were created. The s of the department, initially, were maintained by the ant General of the P&T. However, by April 1972, the telecommunications s were separated. Simultaneously the department also started preparing the balance sheet annually. With the takeover of the s from the audit and delegation of larger financial powers to the field units, internal Financial Advisers were posted to all the circles and units. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is India's leading telecommunications provider and the country's largest public-sector firm. BSNL provides local-exchange access and domestic longdistance services through a network of more than 45 million access lines covering most of India. It also offers wireless communications, data and Internet services, as well as business voice and data services. The company is still controlled by the government, as is India's other dominant phone company Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL). Plans to merge the two companies are in the works. Company Type Private Fiscal Year-End March 2004 Sales (mil.) $5,200.0 1-Year Sales Growth (4.3%) Chairman, Managing Director, and Director, Planning and New Services V. P. Sinha (Subscribers see complete biographies -- view sample) Director, Finance S. D. Saxena Director, Operations S. D. Choudhary Top competitors • Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited • Sify • VSNL

GSM / GPRS NETWORK EXPANSION Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is one of the largest telecommunications companies in India covering both mobile communications and fixed infrastructure. The company was formed in October 2000 when the Indian Government Department of Telecom Operations was floated as a company. The success of the company shows in that it has over 38 million fixed line subscribers,

6.9 million GSM / GPRS subscribers and 1 million CDMA subscribers. The company's Cell One network (GSM/GPRS) was launched in late 2002 and within six months had attracted 2.4 million subscribers. BSNL then decided to halt further network capacity expansion, as it believed it could not sustain the rate of growth. Subscriber numbers did not fall off, but neither did they increase at the same rate. The BSNL board later realised its mistake and in November 2003 authorised capacity enhancement for their cash cow Cell One network (the company has also been affected by SIM card and GSM handset shortages). The expansion process is currently ongoing, increasing the capacity to accept 15 million more subscribers. The network expansion includes the biggest ever GSM tender for 11 million lines, worth $863 million (although the total investment may eventually reach $2.18 billion). This is scheduled to be in place by March 2005, giving BSNL capacity for 31.25 million subscribers. The company target is to reach a total of 25 million GSM subscribers (21.46% of the mobile market in India) by December 2005 from just 6.9 million subscribers in November 2004. BSNL has three major rivals in Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and Hutchinson.

Leading a revolution Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. can rightly claim to be leading India's information revolution and is expected to play a stellar role in the future as well.

BSNL Chairman and Managing Director V.P. Sinha conducts a video-conference between Bangalore and Chennai in the presence of Som Mittal, managing director, Digital Global Soft Ltd., left, and K. Panabhan, CGM (Telecom), Karnataka Circle. On October 1, 2000, the Department of Telecom Operations, Government of India, became a corporation and was christened Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). Today, BSNL is the number one telecommunications company and the largest public sector undertaking in the country, with an authorised share capital of $3,600 million and net worth of $13.85 billion. It has a network of over 45 million lines covering 5,000 towns with over 35 million telephone connections. With the latest digital switching technology and an extensive transmission network, including synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) systems up to 2.5 gbps, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems up to 80 gbps, web telephony, direct Internet access systems (DIAS), virtual private networks (VPN), broadband and more than 400,000 data customers, BSNL is geared to play a stellar role in the information revolution in the country. Its responsibilities include the improvement of the quality of telecom services, the expansion of the telecom network, the introduction of new telecom services in all villages and increasing customer confidence. BSNL has managed to shoulder these responsibilities deftly. A WLL phone comes in handy at the Pushkar ghat in Bhadrachalam. Today, with a line capacity of over 45 million, a nationwide network management and surveillance

system (NMSS) to control telecom traffic and over 4,00,000 route kilometres of optical fibre cable (OFC) network, and with 99.9 per cent of its exchanges being digital, BSNL is a name to reckon with in the world of telecommunications. Like its customer base, BSNL's financial and asset bases too are vast and strong. Consider these figures: The telephone infrastructure alone is worth about Rs.1,00,000 crores ($21.2 billion) and the turnover is Rs.25,000 crores ($5.2 billion). Add to this BSNL's nationwide coverage and reach and comprehensive range of telecom services. A CellOne network tower in Chennai. The turnover of the company for the year 2001-02 was Rs.24,299.8 crores, which on an annualised basis implies a 5 per cent growth over the previous year. This growth took place in spite of a 62 per cent reduction in long-distance tariff during the last quarter of the year. The profit after tax was at a comfortable level of Rs.6,312 crores. In of extension of coverage, the percentage growth of telephone lines during that year (53 lakhs) was the highest ever in the history of telecommunication in the country. Another remarkable achievement was that this phenomenal growth was financed solely through the internal resources of the company, without having to resort to any market borrowing. After making adequate provision for a higher wage bill for the employees absorbed from the erstwhile Department of Telecom Services, the wage bill as a percentage of the turnover is still at a manageable level of 15.84. The net asset value has risen to Rs.58,922 crores. The capital outlay for the expansion and development of rural telephony was Rs.7,946 crores, which is approximately 50 per cent of the total capital expenditure of the company. The debt equity ratio also improved from that of the previous year, from 0.25 to 0.20. The strong fundamentals of the company will enable it to grow from strength to strength. The company plans to expand further its value-added services by introducing new technologies. CellOne, its cellular service, is the biggest in India and covers the entire country. THE formation of BSNL was one of the landmark events in the history of telecommunications in India. Today, it has an awesome task of improving the quality of telecom services, expanding the telecom network, taking telecom services to all villages and instilling confidence in its customers. A mobile tele shop in Tamil Nadu Driven by the best of telecom technology from chosen global leaders, BSNL connects every part of the nation to different corners of the globe. "Connecting India", BSNL's slogan, is no empty claim. The company says it is communicating hopes, happiness, aspirations, dreams and much more. Here is an overview of the world class services offered by BSNL: Basic telephone services: The plain old countrywide telephone service through 32,000 electronic exchanges and the digitalised Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), with a host of Phone Plus value additions. Internet: Accessing the global network of networks, the countrywide Internet services of BSNL under the brand name Sanchar Net, includes Internet dial-up/leased access service for web browsing and e-mail applications. An Internet telephony service was launched under the brand name Webfone recently. ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network Service) of BSNL utilises a unique digital network providing high-speed and high-quality voice, data and image transfer over the same line. It can also facilitate both desktop video and high-quality video conferencing. Intelligent Network Service (In Service) offers value-added services, such as Free Phone Service (FPH), India Telephone Card (pre-paid card) Card Calling (ACC), VPN, tele-voting Rate Service (PRM), Universal Access Number (UAN) and more. An ment on the move. I-Net: India's x.25 based packet Switched Public Data Network is operational in 104 cities of the

country. Leased lines and datacom: BSNL provides leased lines for voice and data communication for various applications on a point-to-point basis. It offers a choice of high-, medium- and low-speed leased data circuits as well as dial-up lines. Bandwidth is available on demand in most cities. Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN) offers flexibility of providing circuits with speeds of nx64 kbps up to 2 mbps, useful for Internet-leased lines and International Principle Leased Circuits (IPLCs). Countrywide cellular service, pre-paid card: BSNL's project of GSM cellular mobile service envisages a customer base of over four million and s applications like voice mail, e-mail, short message service (SMS), cell broadcast service, international roaming, IN Services like prepaid card, rate, free phone, UAN, split charging and VPN.