Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) will pump in Rs.1,600 crore in the next two years on broadband equipment facilities, including Wi-Max and optical fibre.

The investment will enable BSNL to add a capacity of around eight million broadband connections for the government.

Currently, BSNL has around 200,000 broadband users in rural areas and is planning to increase it to three million by the end of 2009. The government has targeted to have around 20 million broadband connections by 2010-end from the present five million.

BSNL is also planning to reach 1,000 rural blocks through its wireless broadband (wimax) technology and is planning to set up terminals at affordable prices for customers to use broadband through its 22,000 telephone exchanges across the country.

The company is planning to roll out Internet protocol Television (IPTV) connections to 50,000 in 93 cities from the present 4,000 in nine cities. BSNL will open 23,000 new telephone exchanges mostly in remote areas an initial outlay of Rs.500 crore.

BSNL is planning to add nine million connections by end of 2009 and planning three million customers every year.

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