Out of the 4.9 lakh landline subscribers BSNL has in Pune, 46,000 have opted for broadband — 5,000-6,000 of them in the last 30 days —, said principal general manger D.K. Maheshwari. “Till now, we were giving only up to 2,000 broadband connections each month. We have seen a sharp growth the last month with around 200 connections a day,” he said.

The BSNL has reached out to rural fringes in the past two weeks. “In the past fortnight, we have extended broadband service to Daund, Talegaon, Lonavla, Chakan, Manchar, and Rajgurunagar. We have already received up to 150 bookings from each of these exchanges and connections will be given within 10 days,” said Maheshwari.

Agreeing that the BSNL has expanded its infrastructure, a Tata Indicom - Broadband employee said the BSNL had provided its DID operators in new upcoming areas with new broadband access equipment in the past three months. “Till June, most outer areas — where 70 per cent of the broadband market lies because of the software crowd — were with the private operators like Sify, Reliance, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited and Airtel. The BSNL made digital subscriber line access multiplier (DSLAM) equipment available in most of these areas. This explains the hike in their subscribers. The BSNL now has the widest network in the market,” said a senior Tata-Broadband employee.

Maheshwari, however, said the company was not dependent only on DID operators for growth. “These operators run small exchanges in housing societies. We have only 60 DID operators. We have expanded our network everywhere, not just in the new colonies. In all, we have 350 DSLAMs, 250 of them were laid during the past three months,” he said.

The company is crediting its sharp rise in subscribers to the arrival of equipment by October-end. “The city has been allotted one lakh lines. Besides 5,000 lines for the rural areas, we have laid equipment for 70,000 lines in the city. By January-end, we intend to finish laying out the remaining 25,000 lines,” said Maheshwari.

The BSNL claims that not more than 60 broadband customers call the complaint cell a day and “their problems are rectified immediately, although most of them have little do with infrastructure issues on our side.” Maheshwari said that nearly 1,000 applications for broadband were pending with the company. “But no complaint against our broadband service is left pending for more than a day,” he said.