Free national roaming by BSNL

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will offer its mobile service subscribers free incoming calls on roaming from June 15.

Announcing this during a press conference, the minister said the state-run telecom firm is ready to compete with private companies by offering better services.

The announcement comes ahead of full mobile number portability (MNP), which will be effective July this year.

“Although there could be slight reduction in revenue on account of free incoming calls during roaming, we expect to gain first mover advantage and anticipate offsetting this amount by arresting churnout/porting out and acquiring new customers,” BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava said.

However, free incoming calls will be offered for only one year.

The minister added that in 2004, BSNL made profits of Rs 10,000 crore, and its loss stood at Rs 7,500 crore in 2014 when the Narendra Modi government took over. MTNL, he said, was in profit zone till 2008, but is now facing losses.

The minister said BSNL’s revenue went up 2.1 per cent in 2014-15 and active subscribers rose 47 lakh.