Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, August 09: There is a good news from the side of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited as the BSNL, Andaman & Nicobar Islands will be adding 1 GBPS of more internet bandwidth by December, 2017, to deal with present connectivity issues in these islands.
Not only this, the BSNL is going to develop more infrastructures in these islands. Presently the BSNL is having a Bandwidth of 1.2 GBPS.
Addressing a Press Conference in the BSNL Office this afternoon at 03:30 pm the Chief General Manager, BSNL, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Mr V Jagadeeshan, ITS said that in last one year Broadband facilities have been provided in Campbell Bay, Kamorta, Neil Island, Little Island.
He said that presently the Islanders are downloading 4000 Mega Byte Data per day, through Broad Band Services which is much higher as compared to the last year.
“Andaman being remote islands there is a lot of connectivity issues. Though the BSNL services have improved to a greater extent in both Mobile and Broadband side,” Mr V Jagadeeshan said.
Mr Jagadeeshan said that 45 numbers of 3G BTS has been enhanced to H+ Technology in South Andaman area. Mr Jagadeeshan also said that the tender for Optical Fibre Cable Project has been floated on 07th July and once that is being finalised Andaman will no more suffer from connectivity problems. “All major clearances are going on for OFC project and completion of the project by 2018 still holds good,” the CGM said.
In the year 2016-2017 gross Broadband connections issued are 3067 number and presently the total number of landline users are 8630 and 60% in that are Broadband users.
The capacity of Broadband has also been added to 1800 ports.
The work for proposed 2nd OFC of 320 kms from Port Blair to Diglipur has already been started and the Satellite Earth Station at Shadipur is already commissioned.
The BSNL has also come up with many promotional offers for Landline and Broadband users. The Broadband Modems that earlier costs Rs 2100 is now offered for only Rs 1500.
Installation of Landline and Broadband connection is also waived off completely.
New Broadband plans include a rental of Rs 1750 were 25 GB is free for rental of Rs 2750, 50 GB usage is free, for the rental of Rs 3750, 80 GB data is free and for a rental of Rs 5000, 125 GB data download is free even though if any user extends the limit he will charged for Rs 0.10paise per MB.
For mobile users the BSNL now offers unlimited calls to any network and unlimited data at Rs 349 valid for 26 days, 23800 sec free local and STD to any network valid for 30 days in recharge of Rs 179, for a recharge of Rs 395 user will get 50hrs free calls to BSNL network and 30 hrs free calls to other network with unlimited data usage etc.
Further the CGM appealed the BSNL users to link there sim cards with AADHAR card which is mandate as per the guidelines.
Further the DDG, DoT, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Mr Hari Babu said that in future every person will be having a mobile and that is of no danger. He explained about the EMF radiation and said that the radiation is just 1 tenth in India and the harming is non-existent.
Even though Mr Hari Babu said that they regular conduct a check of all towers and till date none of the towers have been found beyond the specified limit.
Further the General Manager, BSNL, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Mr Vijay Kumar said that the BSNL since last year has improved a lot and the revenue generation of the BSNL has also gone up to 20-30%.
Answering a question, he said that the OFC work which is presently laid from Port Blair to Diglipur is facing some troubles of clearances as the work is presently going inside the Jarawa area at ATR.
He also clarified that the OFC cut which takes place frequently is because of Landslides, Jarawa people, who cuts to get a silver coated parts from the box fixed in the OFC and last but not the least the smugglers and poachers who cuts it to escape.
