Does BSNL really deserve all the flak?

BSNL is considered to be a state run dinosaur with apathetic officials sitting in outdated offices providing slow and lazy service. They might not be as youthful in their self promotions, but they are genuinely working to boost the infrastructure without hogging the limelight. A young fibre internet company such as Act might be doing wonders in some pockets offering fibre broadband speeds of 125 Mbps, but BSNL has deployed high speed fibre networks in 97 cities across 17 circles (pdf). Bear in mind that Act is not available in all areas in Bengaluru. While BSNL plans may be higher priced than what Hathway, You or Spectranet are offering in some specific locations, BSNL does provide a service to many more areas. The focus for BSNL is not just on metropolitan and tier-I cities. BSNL can even be savvy at times. Just for Bengaluru, to compete with fibre internet providers with aggressive plans, BSNL has special tariffs in place. These plans offer unbelievable rates. The Fibro BBG ULD 1995 CS19 offers a speed of 60 Mbps with an FUP of 100 GB for Rs 1,995 per month. The 20 Mbps and 40 Mbps versions of the “Bullet” plans are priced at Rs 1,045 and Rs 1,395 respectively.  BSNL offers discounted broadband to thousands of schools and educational institutes in rural areas around the country. It is mandatory for Government run schools to use BSNL service if it is available in that area. The special plan for educational institutes in rural areas is a truly unlimited internet, without a free usage policy with a speed of 512 kbps for Rs 1,500 per month. BSNL beat out all private operators to register the highest number of new wireless broadband subscribers earlier this year. In terms of increasing network capacity, BSNL is the principle player in the National Optical Fibre Network Project (NOFNP), connecting village panchayats in remote rural areas with high speed fibre internet. For example, the BSNL Assam circle plans to lay  2,747 kilometers of cable to cover 1,010 gaon panchayats in 91 blocks and 19 districts of Assam. BSNL is at the forefront of partering with global technology giants to bring in incipient technologies to the masses in India. BSNL has partnered with Facebook to provide 100 Wi-Fi hotspots in rural areas in western and southern India. BSNL provided technical support to Google for piloting Project Loon in India, which is an attempt delivering wireless internet from balloons floating high in the atmosphere to underserved areas. BSNL is not a 4G service provider as of now, and while it is planning to launch such a service, the roll out will be limited because of the scarce availability of spectrum. BSNL is countering this limitation by setting up 40,000 hotspots  across the country. This will ease the burden on telecom service providers, and open up spectrum normally used up by internet services over cellular connections for other uses. BSNL was responsible for laying India’s third international Internet gateway at Agartala early this year. This significantly boosted the connectivity for north eastern states, which were getting their connections relayed over the gateways at Mumbai and Chennai till January. BSNL is laying down the infrastructure necessary for the next generation of the internet, to deliver essential internet services including education, healthcare and banking, across the nation. Every Indian has a right to a high-speed dependable Internet connection , and BSNL may just be at the forefront of actually delivering it. What do you think about BSNL? Let us know in the comments section below.