Tech News Desk – Government telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is constantly facing difficulties to maintain its identity among private telecom operators like Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vi. While 5G service is spreading rapidly, BSNL 4G is yet to roll out across the country. Amidst all this, news is now coming that the subscriber base of the company is decreasing very fast and soon the number of BSNL users may be less than 10 crores.
BSNL subscribers are decreasing
Data shared by
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed that
Indian mobile users are leaving the BSNL network. According to the
data, there were estimated to be 10.41 crore BSNL mobile subscribers in
January 2023 but in April 2023 this number has come down to 10.28 crore.
Considering the speed with which BSNL subscriber base is decreasing,
it is being estimated that the number of users (BSNL subscriber base)
may fall below 10 crores in the coming months.
BSNL users are decreasing in villages
The biggest
setback for BSNL is that its subscriber base has started dwindling even
in rural areas. Until recently, where private telecom companies were
preferred in cities, BSNL dominated in rural areas. But now in such
areas also people are leaving the government telecom company BSNL and
going to other operators. According to TRAI, there were 33,26,909 BSNL
mobile subscribers in rural areas in January, which has come down to
32,16,139 in April.
Jio’s growing size
The rural sector was the solid
user base of BSNL and this was the biggest strength of this state-owned
telecom company. But in the past years, under the leadership of Mukesh
Ambani, Reliance Jio has rapidly added new mobile users to its network.
The company has expanded its network and coverage area by installing
mobile towers in villages and remote areas. Due to which the customers
facing BSNL network problems and low coverage got a new option. Jio has
not only given competition to BSNL in terms of network and coverage,
apart from this Mukesh Ambani’s policy of cheap recharge plan has also
worked here. The company also introduced special Jio plans for
smartphone users as well as button phone and 4G feature phone users,
which have proved to be affordable for many. In front of the growing
size of Jio, BSNL itself has started proving to be a dwarf.
BSNL has the largest number of customers here
According
to TRAI, Tamil Nadu circle currently has the maximum number of active
BSNL users and their number is 98,99,833. After this, there have been
97,67,943 subscribers in Kerala. Uttar Pradesh East circle is the third
name in the list of top 3 BSNL circles. There are 86,52,063 BSNL
customers in this area.
bsnl 5g plan
After falling behind in 4G network,
BSNL does not want to worry about 5G service. The government is also
trying very hard to somehow revive BSNL. In this series, recently, the
Central Government has approved a revival package of Rs 89,000 crore for
BSNL to start 4G and 5G services. Let us tell you that the Central
Government has already reserved spectrum of 600 MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz
5G bands for BSNL. In order to start the 4G and 5G BSNL network as
soon as possible, this state-run telecom company has given an advance
purchase order of more than Rs 19,000 crore to the country’s largest IT
service company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and ITI Limited. On the
other hand, the Group of Ministers (GoM) of the Central Government has
also given permission to the TCS consortium to supply equipment for one
lakh sites.
