State owned BSNL on Monday announced upgrading all its existing broadband plans for both old and new subscribers to a minimum speed of 2 megabytes per second (mbps) from 512 kilobytes per second (kbps).
After exhausting the free quota, speed will revert to 512 kbps, BSNL CMD, Anupam Srivastava said at an event in Gurgaon.
“We have increased the internet speed four times…we have ensured 2 mbps is available at the last mile, which is the customer premises starting October 1,” he said. He claimed BSNL is on the revival path and has added 1.5 million mobile subscribers in the last few months as against 0.7-0.8 million subscribers per month.
As per latest figures released by Trai last week, there were 10.88 crore broadband users by June end, with 1.82 crore with BSNL and 2.45 crore with Bharti Airtel. BSNL has been losing out badly to private telcos both in mobile and landline.
FE was the first to report on April 8 regarding Trai drafting recommendations on broadband aimed at enhancing speed from the minimum 512 kbps to up to 2 mbps.
Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who launched BSNL’s broadband scheme reiterated that telecom companies have to find a solution for call drops, adding that they must optimise their networks.