[Daewood]

Originally Posted by mjothi

But for remote places, i think BSNL has to be kept alive. Private operators play only in locaiton where they get revenue.

essential services should always have Government owned companies along with private players. I've been to a few small towns which have very meagre transport facilities beacuse government owned buses were withdrawn and those authorised private operators don't ply frequent trips because their buses don't get filled up.

[visu03]

I get a strange feeling because consumers of BSNL are more worried about the news, that the employees of BSNL itself.

I have been to BSNL office about 6 times in last 3 months.

Goal: To get a new land line and internet connection.

They push me from one desk to other desk and finally the top boss says that there are no free ports available, so cant provide me a connection. Ask them why don't they increase the capacity because I live in an up coming area there are about 100 new apartments getting available in next 6 months. They give me a strange look.

Last month my neighbor gets a land line connection. I ask him, how he got it. He told me that he bribed the line man and connection becomes available.

I think that BSNL should exit retail business in all metro areas and provide back end services to all the operators.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by Gilead

Not true. That issue has nothing to do with BSNL. The Home Ministry did have some concerns about Telcordia's presence in Pakistan, but they have been cleared now. It was a typically bureaucratic move by the ministry as even other equipment providers like Cisco and Ericsson and ALU have a presence in Pakistan.

Could you please throw some more light on this number portability issue. I am genuinely interested to know why it has not been implemented till now.

What kind of security issues are expected if number portability is introduced in India ?

Rohan

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Good, if BSNL goes the way of the dinosaurs! I will not shed any tears for them.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Here in lies the problem. Like any government company, it is overstaffed madly. They needed to trim the employee list by 1 lakh, but unions won't allow it. That means the company itself will sink. However, it being a government company we tax payers will have to bail out the company and keep the 3 lakhs employees securely in their jobs.

Originally Posted by sgiitk

UP-East does not allow this. I have been using the net for my Reliance CDMA for the past 3+ years

Now I maintain a surplus in my BSNL mobile account

Originally Posted by visu03

I think that BSNL should exit retail business in all metro areas and provide back end services to all the operators.

While there is no doubting that public sector sucks in majority of the areas (in fact I discontinued BSNL landline/broadband years ago), but sacking or closing down or privatising is not the answer.

Comments regarding burden on tax payers and all that, guess all diesel car owners will not start a morcha once the subsidies are taken away!

Sacking a lakh of people as recommended by Pitroda is something which we all need to take with a pinch of salt! Unless, the recommendation also contains rehabilitation suggestions for those 1 lakh employees and on an avg 5 people dependent on each of them.

We all have been extremely happy with the stimulus given to auto industry resulting in price cuts on cars..guess where the stimulus money came from!!

We were shedding tears when those couple of '000 staffs were sacked by Jet..eventually they were taken back...and now we suggest "will not shed any tears for them" for 1 lakh employees..Goodness gracious me!

And suggestions regarding selling of like in the case of ashoka hotel or something..IIRC, the the guy who bought it, sold it in a few months and made a huge profit.

==============
Yes, there is a problem with these behemoths but, creative, out-of-the-box thinking and ideas should be propagated here, instead of knee-jerk, typical urban mindset reaction of privatising anything and everything in sight.

For starters, if everyone agrees, sacking is out of question, then what are the best alternatives, wherein, the staff continue to be provided the cushion of govt jobs, but still be employed in a beneficial way.

Couple of quick thoughts that come to me are:

It would be good if BSNL is broken up and let individual states take up the onus on managing the units in their respective states..with this, IMO, better governed states will do a comparatively better job of running the show, and the existing employees retain their coveted "govt job" status.

If indeed those surplus employees need to be sacked, why not discover alternate areas where their limited/non existent expertise or lack of it can be put to good use..like creating / managing the food godowns where, as per latest new reports, millions of tonnes of foodgrains are wasted due to rotting.

Another option which may be explored is to carve out the most committed / dedicated of the employess and float a new company, giving them full autonomy and thus be profitable..This profit can be used to offset losses arising out of the leftover laggard who continue to serve the babus & netas..maybe with the pathetic service, they will wake up sooner than later and stop meddling.

As they say, if there is a will, there is a way!

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Could you please throw some more light on this number portability issue. I am genuinely interested to know why it has not been implemented till now.

What kind of security issues are expected if number portability is introduced in India ?

Rohan

It has not been implemented till now because of intense lobbying against it by nearly all operators, especially the market leaders.

There are no security issues with number portability, at least none on the technical side. Telcordia ironed out every possible issue when the US introduced it several years ago. The so called security issue that the Home Ministry is talking about has got to do with Telcordia's operations in Pakistan where they are a vendor as well. It's just a typical bureaucratic move by the Govt. Like I said, nearly MNC vendor here is a vendor in Pakistan as well.

Originally Posted by visu03

Last month my neighbor gets a land line connection. I ask him, how he got it. He told me that he bribed the line man and connection becomes available.

Oh I see. I find this rather hard to believe as BSNL has a modern OSS backend system just like any other operator. You can't just bribe a line man to cross some connections on the junction box and get new service. A new order has to flow through the ordering, billing, provisioning and activation systems. And a whole bunch of surveillance systems in parallel. And a typical line man will not have the knowledge to do all this. Does your friend get a bill? I think he may have bribed the line man to just get a connection from someone else's existing active line.

[aargee]

IMO, BSNL should be bleeded so that it could be saved by some private player (lucky guy) & then they position themselves better.

PS - While typing this I'd a different thought; what happens if the defence sector is sinking? While I agree that the defence force enjoys all the benefits including the ever increasing budget every year, what if that sector is sinking? (hopefully it is not sinking as of now)

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by Daewood

No private player will want to buy all those 3 Lakh employees!!!

maybe splitting up the company and selling in pieces like how GOI did with Ashok Hotels and retaining some profit making divisions like Broadband may help.

That is why it will be bled beforehand - to send a substantial part of them home. But BSNL acts as a counterweight in the telecom industry. Else, all the other chaps will form a cartel and bleed you instead!

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

We were shedding tears when those couple of '000 staffs were sacked by Jet..eventually they were taken back...and now we suggest "will not shed any tears for them" for 1 lakh employees..Goodness gracious me!

Well, this opinion is because most people here have been at the recieving end of dishonest, insincere and corrupt BSNL employees.

How many Jet Airways employees have asked you for a bribe?

[Raccoon]

Originally Posted by RX135

As per BSNL employees, the downfall is mainly due to executive management of BSNL, which is hand-in-glove with private Telecom operators. Same goes with the decision making politicians. There has been intentional delay in upgrading the infrastructure, which is forcing customers to look at alternatives.

We are using BSNL for over 20 years now, and I see that they are steadily improving. Their service quality is not the best, but it's still consistent. These days, even if the landline does not work for couple of days, it doesn't pinch hard due to cell phones. 3 of my friends are using BSNL DataOne since last 4-5 years with absolutely no hiccups. And if you are not in urban area, BSNL is still the only option available.

People started realizing value of nationalized banks such as SBI, BoI only after they had nightmares dealing with private banks like ICICI. People got back to State Transport buses only after they got fed up with unreliable services of private bus operators (with notable exceptions). Same goes here with BSNL. You need a strong credible government backed neutralizer to keep these private players in check.

They are steadily improving??? Sorry, no offence, but after my recent experience with my exchange (MKR), that sounds like the joke of the century. If at all they have improved then its way too little and too slow.

Just one look at the way everyone functions there is enough to see what the main problems are. On the top of it, there seems to be zero accountability. For eg. my line/BB is not working properly, and absolutely nobody there seems remotely concerned if I ditch them and go to any other operator. In fact, quite the opposite - many of them act as if they are doing us a favor. After all their jobs and salaries are secured. Why should they give a fig? This won't do at all. A top to bottom hard look is needed if anything remotely good is to be made of this very ugly organization.

Just today, the linesmen came again and declared the line to be perfectly "normal" when it very clearly isn't. All they can do is pick up the phone and declare that the noise is very low, and hence not a problem. They have absolutely no inkling that the noise heard is just audible noise and in any case the line is not fit for Broad Band usage as can be clearly demonstrated. Result - even after 20 says, complaint remains as is. Linesmen are totally incompetent and most of the higher ups are incompetent and the few that are are, mostly disinterested.

That said, I don't agree that privatization is the only solution. Private players will gladly milk us dry if they had half the opportunity. But its pretty obvious that the current state of affairs at BSNL should not/cannot be allowed to continue.

[Gilead]

It seems the BSNL employees are going on an indefinite strike from Tuesday. Reason for the strike: disinvestment. God save them.

BSNL workers on indefinite strike from Tuesday-Telecom-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

The employees unions are against the BSNL management's decision to accept the Sam Pitroda committee report which has recommended a 30 percent divestment in the company and voluntary retirement for 100,000 employees.

The strike call has been given by a joint forum of unions that has both executives and non-executives as members.

"The management is not paying any attention to our demands. So, we have decided to go on an indefinite strike from April 20," V A N Namboodiri, the forum convenor, told a press conference Thursday.

Anyone whose phone or broadband conks off next week can expect a lengthy outage.

[Raccoon]

^^^Thats the last straw. I'm doomed...

[vivekiny2k]

I grew up watching my father working in Dept of telecom (not MTNL, BSNL etc). When I entered college I began to realize it was not going to work in long term when Bharti etc started entering this market. In fact most of senior folks then were given attractive offers from these pvt operators. But many (including my father) stuck with DOT because of generous pension plans etc.

I think it's going to go the GM way. Employees (and their benefit plans) will cannibalize the company. Strike and the consequent outages may be a final blow for many customers.

[emkay456]

While agreeing with others on the staff attitudes in BSNL like any other PSU, let me inform you there is a major industrialist lobby who is eyeing BSNL / MTNL not for its staff or even the technology BUT for the massive real estate they hold across the country. Want to acquire and then make money out of the real estate. Matters have reached such state that even the ITS chamchas are now ganging up against the Minister in charge.
Can anyone justify the amount of roadblocks put in the GSM tender of BSNL reducing BSNL to trail behind others in mobile subscribers from being the market leader pan-country.

[Raccoon]

^^^Definitely something very fishy. Given their size and reach, they can very easily be the leaders. But unfortunately, from top to bottom, it is in decay...

[arin_12]

Every time they need some bribe, for each and every service... Recently I have shifted my house and re-connecting the connection I had to some amount. If I go for Airtel(2nd option) they could have done freely. One of my known person clearly agreed that some top official takes money from Private player and do no improvement. Even some time private player will also cut/damage BSNL line intentionally. Hope they dont loose out their job as private company.
And the other side they are more responsive now. I gave a complain for noisy line at my house with in 10 Min I got a call from them. Also I am using the Dataone from past 4+ yrs, did not have any severe prob till now.