JOIN US The Karnataka Telecom Circle (KTK) of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has launched a tablet bundled with data plans.
The tablet, named Penta TPAD, comes at price of Rs 3,499 for a basic model.
Speaking at the launch, Shubhendu Ghosh, Principal General Manager, Bangalore Telecom, said tablets were an easy way of accessing the Internet without a computer or a smartphone.
“A parent might not have the need for it, but the affordability might make a parent consider letting their children use the tablet. This will also increase our reach,” Ghosh said.
Broadband connections
Disclosing that the City has about five lakh broadband connections and there had been a decline in the number of new connections, Ghosh said one of the reasons for the downtrend was the homes without computers.
P Raghavan, Chief General Manager, KTK, said broadband connections had become dependent on penetration of devices giving access to the internet.
“All this is dependent on affordability. Prices have come down and such devices exist. Now people who buy these tablets will not be paying only for the devices but also the bundled data plan for internet access,” he said.
Manufactured by Pantel Technologies Private Limited, the tablet comes with built-in SIM slots. Vivek Prakash of Pantel said such tablets would be available in the near future, but at prices double the present ones. The company has released two models.
Description
The Penta TPAD IS701R is a seven-inch touchpad tablet and runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). With a resistive touch screen, it has a two GB inbuilt memory with 32 GB storage.
It is powered by a one GHz processor with a 256 MB RAM and is WiFi ready. BSNL 2G plans are offered at Rs 250 with 7.5 GB data usage and a validity of 90 days. The 3G service is offered at Rs 752 with five GB data usage and validity of 60 days. The tablet is priced at Rs 3,499.
The second model is the Penta TPAD IS703C with seven- inch capacitive screen and runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). With GB internal memory and one GB RAM, the price of the tablet will be in the range of Rs 6,700.