No extraordinary favour is being done here

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: is also not borne out by past events. As public sector organisations, subject to the Central Vigilance Commissioner and the Comptroller and Auditor General, they have to perforce go in for an open tendering procedure that often invite legal wrangles.

Some of the number crunchers in BSNL are of the opinion that its break-even point for 3G would be several years later than for Airtel and Vodafone. BSNL and MTNL may have to subsidise 3G handsets, but with number portability coming, they will have no hold on retaining their subscribers. Others in BSNL feel that they will have to come up with imaginative schemes to cater to the special needs of rural segments that are largely unserved by the private operators.

One area where BSNL has an advantage over the private sector would be in transacting monetary remittances from migrant labourers, either abroad or in the metro cities, to their families in their villages—the electronic mobile equivalent of the Post Office Money Order. But the RBI is yet to issue the guidelines for mobile banking. BSNL is also planning to tie up with post offices for payments under NREGA where the code is relayed on mobile handsets.

In fact, MTNL and BSNL have long acted as trendsetters in lowering tariffs for consumers. By having the lowest tariffs by far, they have forced other operators to also lower their tariffs. BSNL was the first to offer STD/NSD at Re 1 per minute in February 2006. On 13 August, MTNL, which was the first operator to launch IPTV, launched mobile TV services at just Rs 99 for 16 channels. It also lowered its broadband tariffs by up to 50 %.

To sum up, no extraordinary favour is being provided to BSNL and MTNL by reserving one 3G slot for them in view of their Universal Service Obligations and their catering to the poorer sections of society, especially in rural areas, for over 125 years.