BSNL is experiencing a ‘homecoming’ of customers after private mobile companies hiked tariffs by up to 25% from July. BSNL, which had over 18% share of the Indian telecom market two decades ago, now has less than 2.5% share. 15,000 new customers were added in May while 58,000 were lost in June.
However, the situation is changing now. The company has added 15 lakh customers in the first 15 days of July, i.e. an average of 1 lakh customers per day. Of these, approximately 2.5 lakh customers are excluding Jio, Airtel and Idea. 7 crore (76%) customers were lost in the last 8 years. Now 6.34% new joiners in 15 days.
Benefit of Service Improvement :
BSNL has upgraded more than 25 thousand towers. Besides, the process of installing 20 thousand new towers is going on. This has improved the service. As a result new customers are increasing rapidly but in terms of data speed, voice quality, coverage area the government company is still much weaker than the private player. There is still a long way to go to compete with private companies. » Pankaj Mahendru, Telecom Expert