BSNL aims to raise service quality, add customers to boost revenue: Minister

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) aims to boost its revenue by 20-30% in the current financial year, Union minister of state for communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said on Monday, even as he reiterated that Elon Musk's Starlink won't be a threat to domestic telecom operators as it can provide only 2 million connections in India due to its limited capacity to serve the market.

BSNL seeks to increase its revenues by improving service quality and expanding its client base, but does not intend to raise tariffs to achieve its target, Pemmasani told reporters on the sidelines of a strategic review and planning meeting of the state-run company for 2025-26 in New Delhi.

The loss-making state-run telecom company is actively rolling out 4G services on 100,000 towers and is looking at gradually expanding the tower sites to bolster network connectivity and service quality.

“We want to get the market first. We want people to experience the BSNL services first,” Pemmasani said. The minister's comments come at a time when private telecom operators are looking at another round of tariff increase, after raising it in July last year.

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BSNL's revenue from operations grew 8% to ₹20,841 crore in FY25. Its losses also narrowed to ₹2,247 crore from ₹5,371 crore in FY24. 

As of May-end, BSNL had 90.7 million mobile subscribers, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The company’s market share was at 7.8%. Jio had 490 million customers as of June-end, while Airtel had 362 million as of March-end. Bharti Airtel has yet to report its June quarter earnings.

Starlink not seen as a threat

Meanwhile, he sought to reassure the domestic telecom service providers, saying that the upfront cost for satellite communication services will be too high, and Starlink can have only 2 million customers in India and offer up to 200 Mbps speed. The monthly cost for Starlink will be around ₹3,000. “Just like installing a DTH connection, each Starlink subscriber will require a standalone satellite dish, which costs roughly ₹30,000 upfront. Monthly fees are also around ₹3,000,” Pemmasani said, confirming analysts' reports over Starlink's pricing in the country. 

Starlink has received the final regulatory clearance to begin commercial satellite internet services in India.

Govt review BSNL strategy

On Monday, Union communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia along with Pemmasani met the chief general managers (CGM) of all the circles of BSNL. Quality of services and plans to improve the same, growth targets including average revenue per user (Arpu) increase, expense reduction, customer grievances, and enterprise business focus were among the key issues that the ministers and the company officials discussed.

Addressing the heads of the 32 circles of BSNL, Scindia said there is a need to have a strategy to improve the service quality and conduct surveys to understand customers' perception of BSNL's services. Scindia also told officials from the department of telecommunications (DoT) to submit a business plan, which will include the monthly revenue and expense target. The circle heads were also asked to form cross-sell and upsell strategy to improve revenue and also serve areas where private operators are not serving.

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“It is not important to look at operating cash flows or net profit. It's important to look at customer satisfaction. It's important to look at growth of the customer base, upselling and cross-selling of products,” Scindia told reporters. He added that the same will also boost Arpu of the company.

BSNL's monthly Arpu varies from circle to circle. Scindia said some circles have Arpus of ₹40-45 while others have Arpus of ₹175 per month. By contrast, India's largest telecom operator Jio had an Arpu of ₹208.8 as of June-end, while the second-largest Airtel had ₹245 as of March-end.

Scindia also asked BSNL officials to aim for 50% growth in its mobile services business and 25–30% growth in the enterprise segment next year.

Service quality in focus

Notably, in the January-March quarter, BSNL posted its second straight quarterly profit after 18 years, a milestone suggesting that the state-owned telecom operator’s fortunes may be changing. Yet, this performance was largely driven by accounting adjustments, something that its auditor has flagged. What also helped the company's numbers is the sale of land, buildings and other infrastructure, and a change in how it depreciates the cost of airwaves.

In the April-June quarter, BSNL grew its revenue by 20-30% year-on-year (YoY), Pemmasani said, adding that one of the things which led to the growth is that 4G is working well and is cheaper. Further, the issues with batteries powering telecom towers have been resolved, he said.

BSNL customers have often complained of call drops or not being able to establish calls, issues that government says have been addressed to a large extent. “More than 90% of these issues have been fixed and it is working well for the last couple of months,” Pemmasani said.

In a letter dated 27 June to prime minister Narendra Modi, BSNL employees union said that there had been a serious dissatisfaction among BSNL customers over the poor quality of BSNL’s 4G services.

“Customers across the country are experiencing severe difficulties with voice calls and data downloads due to unsatisfactory quality of the 4G service,” the employees union said in the letter. A copy of the letter was seen by Mint.

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BSNL is using indigenous equipment and software for rolling out 4G and 5G services developed by a consortium of TCS, Tejas Networks and Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT).

When asked if directions were given to TCS and Tejas for improvement in service quality, Pemmasani said, “that is the whole purpose of doing this. When you deploy the technology first which is used by millions of customers, not everything can be identified. But the idea is to identify it quickly and correct it, which they have done.”