BSNL plans to overhaul mobile phony in Jharkhand

Ranchi : The Jharkhand Circle of the Bharat Sachar Nigam (BSNL) has made a Rs 300 crore plan to completely overhaul the mobile telephone operations in the state.

The proposed plan envisages installation of five new main switching centres (MSCs) known as mobile exchanges at different locations in addition to the five existing ones and installation of over 600 new base trans-receiver stations (BTS) towers across the State.

The project would lead to creation of 10 lakh additional capacity in mobile network against the existing 7.15 lakh.

To ensure smooth execution of the project, the circle also effected a minor reshuffle in its mobile wing by shifting Sanjay Kumar as DGM (mobile-planning) in place of Arvind Prasad, who has been moved in the same capacity in the Chief General Manager (CGM) office.

According to a senior BSNL officer, three additional MSCs with advanced features have been set up in Ranchi, besides one each at Bokaro and Jamshedpur.

They would soon be integrated with the original network. Besides, efforts are on to replace the outdated BTS towers of Nortel by the state-of-the-art equipment supplied by Ericssons recently.

"The replacement of BTS towers has begun in parts. And if everything goes as per the plan, CellOne subscribers would have seamless service by the next month. By that time, all the new MSCs would also be integrated in the main network," official said.

In a bid to provide smooth access to the Internet through mobiles, the BSNL is also upgrading its data transmission technology from GPRS to EDGE. The new technology facilitates net browsing three times faster than the GPRS.

The users, however, require having EDGE(Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) enabled sets to enjoy the service.