The Hindu Business Line : PCO booths: Pvt players make big inroads

PRIVATE telecom operators are making huge inroads into the PCO business, which has so far been dominated by the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL).

During the period between July and September this year, private operators including Bharti Tele-Ventures, Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices, added nearly 6-lakh PCO booths compared to 1 lakh added by the two PSUs.

The thrust given by private operators have reduced the total market share of PSUs in the PCO segment to 62 per cent at the end of September.

In December 2004, BSNL and MTNL together accounted for nearly 90 per cent of the PCO business with over 20 lakh. Private operators had just about 3 lakh booths at the end of 2004. Since then, they have grown their network to over 15 lakh out of the total tally of 36 lakh around the country.

The number of PCOs grew by 60 per cent over the last one year, a large part of which was added by the private operators. Reliance led the pack with 5.3-lakh PCOs. It had just over a lakh booths at the end of 2004. Bharti has 4.5-lakh booths while Tata Teleservice has 3.2 lakh. BSNL is, however, the single largest PCO operator with nearly 19-lakh booths.

In a bid to counter the private operators' strategies, BSNL recently revamped its PCO business. It decreased the tariffs for local calls made from PCO even while lowering the pulse rate significantly.

BSNL had also increased the commission for PCO booth owners to 10 per cent. It had introduced a slab system whereby booths with higher minutes of use get a higher share of the revenue collected. However, better servicing and programmes for booth owners from private operators seem to have nullified BSNL initiatives.