The CMD of BSNL, Anupam Shrivastava stated that the company at present neither has a 4G service, nor do the relevant spectrum to launch this service. Also to deal with this challenge, they are working on a scheme to set up 40,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots in the country, as he claims it to be faster than 4G services.

Though it is not clear if people not using BSNL telecom services will be able to use that Wifi or not. Also, in November the company tied up with social media giant Facebook to create Wifi hotspots for rural areas and the Zuckerberg owned company will fund them with Rs 5 crore every year to buy the bandwidth from the company.

To speed up customer acquisition, state-owned telecom firm BSNL has slashed mobile rates by up to 80% for the first two months under a scheme for new customers.

"BSNL has revamped its infrastructure now. We have decided to cut mobile call rates by up to 80% for new customers so that they get experience of our revamped services," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.

Calling for a balance between business growth and consumer interest, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said he will remain tough on the issue of service quality of telecom companies.

“While I applaud telecom operators for spreading mobile services in the nook and corner of the country, I am equally concerned that quality of service must be maintained. I will do a lot of tough talking to make them understand the problem. Now, they are responding,” Prasad said. He was speaking at the annual general meeting of industry chamber Ficci on Saturday.

The government has in-principle agreed to partner with Google’s Project Loon on a pilot basis and state run BSNL has been assigned to partner it, communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday after a meeting with Google’s CEO Sunder Pichai.

“In-principle we agree for a pilot project for Project Loon. We are quite open on the project and BSNL will partner with Google for it,” Prasad said.

Private telecom companies are increasing their customers but not improving services which are “very bad”, government said in Rajya Sabha today and asserted that it will take “stern” steps to address the menace of mobile call dropping.

Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the private telecom companies have been asked to improve the infrastructure and the government is monitoring it.

The Telecom Ministry has issued notices to state-owned BSNL, MTNL and India Post after Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad personally took note of citizen complaints over service quality on social media since July.

Prasad, who has over 4.65 lakh followers on Facebook, received the complaints relating to the three departments under his ministry.

In a sign of turnaround, state-run telecom operator BSNL on Tuesday reported net loss stood at Rs 8,234 crore for the fiscal, the same for which was Rs 7,020 crore in last year and the widening is on account of asset depreciation calculated as per the Companies Act, 2013.

The company's an operating profit of Rs 672 crore for the financial year 2015, aided by fall in administrative costs and jump in revenues.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is keen to cash in on spectrum sharing and trading. The state-run telecom firm is also in talks with private telcos for intra-circle roaming (ICR) agreements to share its passive infrastructure.

BSNL expects to earn Rs 300-400 crore a year through ICR arrangements starting the next financial year. Along with spectrum sharing, revenue expectations will go much higher, its chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava told Business Standard.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) is actively considering setting up a holding company, with state-run telecom companies Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) as its subsidiaries. The move is expected to revive the ailing public sector undertaking companies, by synergising their operations.

This is one option recommended by IIM-Bangalore in a report on measures for reviving the firms, according to a senior official from the department.

NEW DELHI: US social networking major Facebook has partnered state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) to create 100 WiFi hotspots in rural India to drive digital penetration in the country.

Facebook is investing Rs 5 crore per annum for buying bandwidth from BSNL in this joint initiative that also includes IT infrastructure services providers such as Quad Zen and Trimax for equipment and fibre deployment, BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava told ET.

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