The biggest winner from the recent mistakes made by major telecom companies like Jio, Airtel, and Vi has been the government-owned telecom provider, BSNL. Between July and October, many people have been switching their mobile numbers to BSNL. A recent report from TRAI has surprised private telecom companies, revealing that BSNL has gained a record number of users in just the last four months. Unlike BSNL, other telecom providers have not seen an increase in their customer base. Reliance Jio, headed by Mukesh Ambani, has been hit the hardest, losing over 1 crore customers.
According to BSNL’s official updates, the company has welcomed about 55 lakh new users who switched from other networks in the past four months. In total, BSNL has gained around 65 lakh new users during this period, with a significant portion joining through a process called mobile number portability (MNP), which allows users to keep their phone numbers when they switch providers.
The mistakes made by private companies proved costly. In July, these companies raised their mobile recharge prices by as much as 25 percent to boost their income from each user. This led many customers, already dealing with rising living costs, to reconsider their choices and move their numbers to BSNL, even if BSNL might not have the best network coverage. Many customers who used Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone-Idea as backup options have decided to shut down those extra numbers.
BSNL is also focused on improving its services. The company plans to launch its 4G service nationwide by June of next year and has already set up around 51,000 new mobile towers for better coverage. They aim to have a total of 100,000 new towers installed by mid-next year.
Additionally, the Union Minister for Communications, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has announced that BSNL will begin offering 4G services across the country by next June, and the company is also testing out 5G services. A senior official from BSNL has stated that they do not plan to raise prices anytime soon. For now, the main goal for BSNL is to expand its network and attract more users.
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