State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has announced the countrywide rollout of its blackberry solutions on the 3G network by launching Blackberry smart phones in a tie-up with Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian company that owns the patent for BlackBerry devices.
The new service was launched in Chandigarh, at a function attended by BSNL Chairman and MD Mr. Kuldeep Goyal and telecommunications secretary Mr. Siddharth Behura.
Blackberry smart phones are in a price range of Rs14,499-34,399. Three blackberry handsets launched are
- Blackberry Bold,
- Blackberry Curve 8310 and
- Blackberry 8700.
Introduced under the post-paid mobile service, Blackberry service would carry fixed monthly charges ranging between Rs.299 and Rs.999 for Blackberry Internet service (BIS) and Rs.425 and Rs.875 for Blackberry Enterprise services (BES). These are in addition to the voice plan charges and customers can avail of this service under the monthly existing plan of Rs.225, Rs.325, Rs.525 and Rs.725.
Blackberry handsets are available with a BSNL connection are-
- Blackberry Bold
- Blackberry Curve 8310 and
- Blackberry 8700
All these are priced between Rs 14,499 – Rs 34,399 and BSNL expects to sell about 1000 sets in next few months.
At present four private telecom operators are providing BlackBerry services in the country. They are-
- Reliance Communications,
- Airtel,
- Vodafone and
- Tata Teleservices
There are nearly 400 million telecom connections in the country and every month 10 million new connections are being added. BSNL share about 72 million connections and hope to increase it to 80 million by the end of this year.
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