BANGALORE: With more than 21,000 connections, Bangalore leads the country in broadband connectivity, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), A.K. Sinha, said here on Monday.

The current fiscal's target is to reach one lakh connections, he told prespersons. For the country as a whole, the target is 10 lakh connections.

Mobile connections through BSNL in the city have reached 7.9 lakhs, compared with 3.4 lakhs a year ago, Mr. Sinha said.

The growth rate this year could be around 300 per cent. BSNL has the second largest revenue in the country from its mobile phone services, he said.

For fixed line subscribers in the city with high volume billing, bonuses such as supplying a cordless phone are being considered, he added.

In the country as a whole, BSNL has become more competitive than earlier and has an ambitious target of 215 million phone connections of all kinds by 2007, he said.

"We used to add just 66 lakh connections each year till now and this has to triple to reach that figure," Mr. Sinha said.

Compared with private operators, BSNL has done better in providing phone connections in rural areas. In Karnataka alone, it provided close to 90,000 rural connections last year.

"In another two years, rural consumers will not face a wait beyond two or three weeks. Out of six lakh revenue villages in the country, we have already covered 5.25 lakhs, while the private operators have touched barely one lakh," he claimed.

BSNL is the service provider for those accessing the second series of "Kaun Banega Crorepathi" starting next month, with a gateway in Hyderabad which will handle lakhs of call around the same time, Mr. Sinha said.

This mass "televoting" will be milestone for BSNL, he added.

On revenue losses from unlicensed international call operators, he said 50 to 60 raids were being conducted each year and illegal operators unearthed but the losses were only a small fraction of the total revenues."There are authorised users of satellite telephones and some helped during natural calamities like the tsunami," Mr. Sinha said.

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