Telephone and Mobile
BSNL provides both fixed line telephones and mobile telephony services on the GSM platform.
BSNL Mobile
BSNL Mobile is a major provider of GSM network services under the brand names CellOne and BSNL all over India. It has a wide network coverage in both urban and rural areas of India. It has over 121.82 million customers across India.[6]
BSNL Mobile offers prepaid, postpaid services and value-added services such as Free Phone Service (FPS), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rate Service (PRM). It also offers the IPTV, which enables customers to watch television through the Internet and Voice and Video Over Internet Protocol (VVoIP).[10]
BSNL Landline
BSNL Landline was launched in the early 1990s. It was the only fixed-line telephone service for the whole country before the New Telecom Policy was announced by the Department of Telecom in 1999. Only the Government-owned BSNL and MTNL were allowed to provide land-line phone services through copper wire in the country. BSNL Landline is the largest fixed-line telephony in India. It has over 9.55 million customers and 47.20% market share in the country as of 28 February 2021.[6]
BSNL Mobile
BSNL Mobile is a major provider of GSM network services under the brand names CellOne and BSNL all over India. It has a wide network coverage in both urban and rural areas of India. It has over 121.82 million customers across India.[6]
BSNL Mobile offers prepaid, postpaid services and value-added services such as Free Phone Service (FPS), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rate Service (PRM). It also offers the IPTV, which enables customers to watch television through the Internet and Voice and Video Over Internet Protocol (VVoIP).[10]
BSNL Landline
BSNL Landline was launched in the early 1990s. It was the only fixed-line telephone service for the whole country before the New Telecom Policy was announced by the Department of Telecom in 1999. Only the Government-owned BSNL and MTNL were allowed to provide land-line phone services through copper wire in the country. BSNL Landline is the largest fixed-line telephony in India. It has over 9.55 million customers and 47.20% market share in the country as of 28 February 2021.[6]
Internet
BSNL is the fourth-largest ISP in India, having a presence throughout the country. It also has the largest Firebase telecom network in the country, around 7.5 lakh kilometers, among the four operators in the country.[11]
BSNL Broadband
BSNL Broadband provides telecom services to enterprise customers, including MPLS, P2P and Internet leased lines. It provides fixed-line services and landlines using CDMA technology and its own extensive optical fiber network. BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up connections as prepaid, NetOne as postpaid, and DataOne as BSNL Broadband.[12][13]
BSNL Broadband
BSNL Broadband provides telecom services to enterprise customers, including MPLS, P2P and Internet leased lines. It provides fixed-line services and landlines using CDMA technology and its own extensive optical fiber network. BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up connections as prepaid, NetOne as postpaid, and DataOne as BSNL Broadband.[12][13]
BSNL Bharat Fiber
BSNL Bharat Fiber (FTTH) was launched in February 2019. It offers TV over IP (IPTV), Video On-Demand (VoD), Voice over IP (VoIP), Audio On-Demand (AoD), Bandwidth On-Demand (BoD), remote education, video conferencing services, interactive gaming, and Virtual Private LAN services. BSNL has said that its optic fiber network provides fixed access to deliver high-speed Internet up to 300 Mbit/s.[14][15][16]
Bharat Net
With effect to the government of India's policy decision to provide state-owned BSNL with another revival package worth 1.64 lakh crore rupees, the struggling PSU was merged with the Government's special purpose vehicle BBNL. This gave the struggling PSU a boost and an additional advantage of an additional 5.67 lakh kilometers of optical fiber, which has been laid across 1.85 lakh village panchayats in the country using the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Currently, it has an optical fibre cable network of over 6.83 lakh kilometres.
BSNL 4G
BSNL is the first telecom operator in India to start rolling out 4G service by using Mobile Broadband in 2009. In 2010 BWA auction, BSNL was allocated with 4G spectrum under 2300MHz Bandwidth (in all 20 telecom circles in India except Delhi & Mumbai because it is administered under MTNL network but MTNL also allocated with the same) which is also known as BWA or Broadband Wireless Access spectrum. It is initially used for WiMAX, and later the same is used for LTE service. BSNL was allocated the spectrum without participating in the BWA auction, because it is a state-owned entity, owing to which it has been provided with Auction Exception. So, in order to acquire the spectrum, BSNL has to pay the equivalent amount that private telecom players paid for the same Bandwidth in the Auction to the Government. So, BSNL has provided 8,500 crores to the Government for this spectrum. MTNL also provided 1120 crores to the Government for the same. In the meanwhile other telecom players were using LTE technology to provide 4G services, BSNL alone used WiMAX technology to provide 4G service. But WiMAX technology is not accepted globally due to which the technology got failed to prove. So BSNL returned back all the 4G WiMAX technologies to the Government and brought back the investment amount due to heavy financial debt incurred at the time.[17] Reason behind the financial burden is because of its Legacy Systems and increasing pension to retired employees. Later in 2017-18 period BSNL provided 4G services in Few areas of India under Spectrum Reframing despite being not a proper 4G service. Under Make in India initiative, C-DOT (Centre for Development of Telemarics) developed the 4G core network for India. But the assembly segment was developed by Tejas Network (which was later brought by TATA) and the Government owned entity ITI (Indian Telephone Industries Limited).
BSNL 5G
On behalf of the government of India, the Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the State-Owned Telco would start its 5G operations by 15 August 2023. He also added that the 4G and 5G network of the state-owned BSNL would be a completely home-grown indigenous 4G and 5G network technology; thus, emphasizing more on Govt. of India's Atmanirbhar Bharat.[24][25][26][27]
Direct-to-Device
In November 2024, BSNL introduced and made a trial of the new Direct-to-Device technology for the first time in India in partnership with VIASAT. This technology enables users to communicate without transversing a Base Station or Core Network. This technology is used in direct interaction between 5G-enabled devices to connect seamlessly to both terrestrial and satellite coverage.[28]
IP & cloud services
BSNL Managed Cloud Services
On 28 May 2013, BSNL launched "Internet Data Centre – Managed Cloud Services". This includes computation, software, data access and storage services for individuals as well as enterprises.[29]
Services include:
- Cloud compute
- Cloud Storage
- Hosted Exchange
- Hosted Virtual Desktop Infra (VDI)
- Hosted Gateway
- Hosted Email filter
- Hosted web filter
- Hosted backup and restore
- Hosted DR
- Hosted communication Services
BSNL Managed Cloud Services
On 28 May 2013, BSNL launched "Internet Data Centre – Managed Cloud Services". This includes computation, software, data access and storage services for individuals as well as enterprises.[29]
Services include:
- Cloud compute
- Cloud Storage
- Hosted Exchange
- Hosted Virtual Desktop Infra (VDI)
- Hosted Gateway
- Hosted Email filter
- Hosted web filter
- Hosted backup and restore
- Hosted DR
- Hosted communication Services
- Hosted Database
BSNL Wing Services
On 16 August 2018, BSNL launched "BSNL Wings Services" in 22 telecom circles, in which there is no need for a SIM card or FTTH as it is a VoIP service through an app.[30] It offers unlimited free calling for one year throughout India.[31]
