[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by dragonfire

Amd surprised why they let BSNL die and prop up Jio in their place. Instead they should have sold BSNL to Reliance and probably coerced VI to sell themselves to Adani. We would have had at least 3 players to choose from.

BSNL has a bloated employee list (60,000 employees who generate Rs. 20,000 cr revenues). Bharti Airtel too has 60,000 employees, but the company generates Rs. 140,000 cr in revenues. So BSNL cannot be sold because of excess employees.

If Vodafone or BSNL starts dying, Airtel & Jio will not bother to pay for its prepaid & postpaid customers. That's because they know its a duopoly now and the customers will eventually shift to either of these two companies.

[Fuldagap]

BSNL has a lot of problems that refrains it from becoming competitive. One of them being politics. The less said the better.

Visiting a BSNL exchange few years back got to know that the exchange only had one lady officer as permanent employee while all others were temporary staff outsourced to a private company earning peanuts.

The morale of employees is at the lowest. Compulsary VRS etc not helping either. In 2019, more than 80,000 BSNL staff were let go and most did not know what to do next. I met a bright and young JTO same year and he clearly told me he wasted his life preparing for the so called great JTO profile and ended up in an organisation where the future is uncertain due to prevailing politics.

I first used BSNL 3g in 2009. Unlimited downloads at fantastic speeds with just Rs. 225 per month on a Nokia 5700 Xpressmusic. It is not that BSNL has any technical or HR limitations to deliver like private companies. It is what the the government wants to do with it.

BSNL's FTTH even in far flung areas can't ever be matched by private companies who even can't provide FTTH to even certain areas of a big city.

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by meerkat

GoI owns what, ... 100% of BSNL? .... Yet they apparently have no problem letting it slowly die! :-)
.

How do you know it is dying? On the contrary, if it was not for the government ownership, would BSNL be alive today?

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by warrioraks

How do you know it is dying? On the contrary, if it was not for the government ownership would BSNL be alive today?

Exactly. Stands true for most government owned companies.
They are government owned not just to keep them alive for the company's sake, they are kept alive to also serve the masses in geographies where private players would not have ventured into in the first place.
Consider PSBs. A loss making govt bank branch in a village operating since 1980s for example. The govt ownership is necessary because the companies then have to mandatorily cater to semi urban and rural areas as per the government's wish.

This is also true for private players. Without government favour they also cannot see meteoric rise in just a few years. Jio is a great example here. 4g allocation prioritised for private players and not to BSNL.

[ValarMorghulis]

BSNL and MTNL are typical examples of govt. run bloated organizations.
I remember as a kid, dad had MTNL mobile number in Delhi. It never worked when you wanted to call your relatives (new year, Diwali, Holi, etc.). It was affectionately nicknamed Mr. Time pe Nahi Lagenge (MTNL). Went to our hometown and mamaji had a BSNL mobile connection which was known as Bhai Sahab kabhi Nahi Lagenge (BSNL).
That both MTNL and BSNL skipped 4G and decided to go from 3G to 5G (I don't think they have started 5G yet) speaks volumes.

Fast forward to 2023, in Punjab we had broadband from BSNL which often gave issues ruining our wfh. Called the technicians and they kept lamenting that govt is not supporting
(hint preference to Jio). I asked him Jio debuted in 2016, what was BSNL doing till then and he just smirked. Summed up the entire situation.

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

...they are kept alive to also serve the masses in geographies where private players would not have ventured into in the first place...

That might have been true a decade ago. Today Kedarnath and majority of Uttarakhand remote hills have Jio and Airtel but no BSNL or Vi. If nothing else, Jio is definitely present.

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

...Without government favour they also cannot see meteoric rise in just a few years. Jio is a great example here. 4g allocation prioritised for private players and not to BSNL.

That's pretty much how AirIndia debt grew to 60k crores. Govt. has no business running such orgs which are poorly managed and bloated.

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Fast forward to 2023, in Punjab we had broadband from BSNL which often gave issues ruining our wfh. Called the technicians and they kept lamenting that govt is not supporting
(hint preference to Jio). I asked him Jio debuted in 2016, what was BSNL doing till then and he just smirked. Summed up the entire situation.

The techinician was right. There is no govt support since a decade to BSNL. Technically BSNL is as robust as Airtel given their optical fibre expertise and capability.

Govt companies are also bound to pay hefty dividends to govt eating up their already miniscule profits.

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

...Technically BSNL is as robust as Airtel given their optical fibre expertise and capability.

Govt companies are also bound to pay hefty dividends to govt eating up their already miniscule profits.

SmartCat gave one example of bloated workforce. There are numerous others when it comes to BSNL and MTNL. I wish MTNL was as good as Airtel. MTNL also had a decade headstart compared to Jio but they never worked. When Airtel was working fine, MTNL never did. That's the reason Airtel ate their lunch in both broadband and landline first and later in mobile.
Blaming Jio for MTNL/BSNL woes is pretty much akin to blaming BazBall for recent England's defeat. The English were simply not competent enough and neither was MTNL.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

They are government owned not just to keep them alive for the company's sake, they are kept alive to also serve the masses in geographies where private players would not have ventured into in the first place.
Consider PSBs. A loss making govt bank branch in a village operating since 1980s for example. The govt ownership is necessary because the companies then have to mandatorily cater to semi urban and rural areas as per the government's wish.

+1

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

That might have been true a decade ago. Today Kedarnath and majority of Uttarakhand remote hills have Jio and Airtel but no BSNL or Vi. If nothing else, Jio is definitely present.

Still holds true. Head over to the Western Ghats in any state - Karnataka/Maharashtra/etc; and you'll notice only BSNL has coverage in most remote(est) areas. None of the private players are able to cover the length and breadth as much as BSNL does. This hold true for any remote locations across the country.

And there's a reason for this. Every telecom firm has a mandate to cover certain percentage of their network coverage (or rather their telecom towers/infra) to be across rural / remote areas. Every private operator tries to make the best out of it and focuses on the "best" rural/remote areas. It's just plain business. The government operator(s) are left holding the areas that are not covered. And they have been doing it for decades, especially BSNL.

I'm saying this from a capacity of working in the telecom industry and exposure across multiple telecom operators infrastructure.

[Aditya]

Getting a new SIM | Jio, Airtel or BSNL? - Posts moved to a new thread.

[KrisTvpm]

Like others mentioned, never went to any brick & mortar shop; just placed request for SIM online with Jio.

It was home-delivered, KYC etc done & SIM activated, all within a day.

Not sure how their retail outlets function.

Coverage & speed-wise, no complaints. It works across the country, almost anywhere(perhaps not as ubiquitous & prevalent in even rural areas as much as BSNL; hence I have BOTH on my dual-SIM phone! One Jio + another BSNL, the sarkari one held for last 2 decades).

Rely ONLY on the Jio SIM for 4G/internet -- maps/banking/SM all work fine.

Guess I should move on to 5G; till such time my 6y/o Samsung Galaxy Note9 4G is good enough!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Having a new phone, I shall get some pleasure if and when I see "5G" on the status bar! It remains to be seen if it will be of anything other than technical benefit. It might actually be, when I am uploading several MB of photos. But I am usually doing that from tablet, which is a long-before 5G device.

[Thyag]

Whatever might be the scenario don't ever get into the trap of Airtel, they are the worst !

Solving the puzzle of their billing statements is the only entertainment they provide – it's like a monthly game of financial Sudoku with disappearing money and hidden fees !

The worst thing you can do to yourself is "getting yourself any of the airtel services (Fastag, Internet, Cellular, etc)"

[riteshritesh]

I have to buy a new sim for Bank OTP's, however this number will be in the USA permanently. Seeking suggestions with working options ( okay with Prepaid or Postpaid) that can be paid/recharged online with a USA credit card. Does any operator have roaming plan without data?
Please skip suggestions to use email OTP. Need a sms OTP solution.

[dragonfire]

Originally Posted by riteshritesh

I have to buy a new sim for Bank OTP's, however this number will be in the USA permanently. Seeking suggestions with working options ( okay with Prepaid or Postpaid) that can be paid/recharged online with a USA credit card. Does any operator have roaming plan without data?
Please skip suggestions to use email OTP. Need a sms OTP solution.

Cheapest is to get an prepaid Airtel SIM. A Rs 2997 recharge will give you 100mins calling, 2gb data for one full year. Mostly they latch on to the T-mobile network here in the USA.

I recharge with India credit cards. USA credit cards don't use OTPs for transactions, so you will have to find an alternate way - like UPI.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Thyag

Whatever might be the scenario don't ever get into the trap of Airtel, they are the worst !

Solving the puzzle of their billing statements is the only entertainment they provide – it's like a monthly game of financial Sudoku with disappearing money and hidden fees !

I wonder how can one be in the situation of puzzled billing for mobile services in the era of unlimited calling facility available at fixed price plans!

I have switched onto Airtel Black plan for 3 of my connections long ago. One is my postpaid number, another addition is my son's number which I got last year and third is my 100mbps broadband plan.

The total bill for all these three services is Rs. 1649.64 constant every month where everything is unlimited except the shared mobile data which always shows 300+ GB available every month.

Although I had different package few months ago which used to cost couple of hundred more than the current in the Airtel Black but later switched onto current plan which I find indifferent compared to the previous once for the facilities I need or use.

But the bills remained constant every month in either of the plans for me.

My only complaint is the deteriorating and unreliable quality of mobile network, be it Airtel, Vi or anything else.

Ironically the mobile is no more mobile where and when we desperately need it as a mobile, rest of the time we depend on the broadband, even for mobile services (many calls these days are received or made as WiFi calls).