"We will review our internet tariff," MTNL chairman and managing director S Rajagopalan told PTI when asked about the corporation's earlier commitment to bring down prices with increase in subscribers' base.

"Looking at the potential for internet growth, we would like to increase internet capacity in each city to 20,000. We have already placed orders for additional equipment with an investment of Rs 7 crore," he said.

Some of these issues are likely to be discussed at MTNL's board meeting on Thursday to approve financial performance for the year 1998-99.

Stating that MTNL had nearly attained the target of 5,000 subscribers each in Mumbai and Delhi since the launch of its internet service in early February, Rajagopalan said that the corporation would now concentrate onstudents for further expansion of its network.

Most of MTNL's internet subscribers fall into the category of 100 hours, he said adding that "we are expecting increase in number in other categories of 200 and 500 hours soon".

On the public switch telephone network (PSTN), MTNL charges Rs 2,550 for 100 hours, Rs 5,525 for 250 hours and Rs 8,500 for 500 hours apart from one-time registration fee of Rs 500.

Till last week, MTNL had given 4,650 connections in Mumbai while in Delhi the number of subscribers was 3,550. Of the total, as many as 6,708 were in the category of 100 hours, 500 in the category of 200 hours and 419 in the 500 hours category. MTNL is contemplating to offer special packages for low users, Rajagopalan said adding that "we would like to be competitive with other service providers".