Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited

Type	A publicly-listed state-owned enterprise
Traded as	NSE: MTNL BSE: 500108 NYSE: MTE
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1986
Headquarters	New Delhi, India
Key people	A.K.Garg (Chairman & MD)
Products	Fixed-line and mobile telephony, broadband and fixed-line internet services, digital television
Revenue	$788.7 million (2010)
Net income	$-567.5 million (2010)
Total assets	$6.988 billion (2010)
Total equity	$1.351 billion (2010)
Employees	45,000 (2010)
Website	www.mtnl.net.in

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) (NSE: MTNL, BSE: 500108, NYSE: MTE) is a state-owned telecommunications service provider in the metro cities of Mumbai and New Delhi in India. The company was a monopoly until 1992, when the telecom sector was opened to other service providers. "Transparency makes us different" is the motto of the company. In recent years, MTNL has been losing revenue and market share heavily due immense competition in the Indian telecom sector.

Name

'Maha' = big or great
'Nagar' = city or town
'Mahanagar' = metropolis or megacity
'Nigam' = venture or enterprise.

Products

MTNL provides fixed line telephones, GSM, WLL (CDMA) connections:

Dolphin - a postpaid GSM service which also provides value added services such as [[3G],

Trump - a prepaid GSM service, similar to Dolphin,

Garuda - a WLL service which provides an FW tariff, and a Mobile tariff

MTNL also provides TriBand Internet services through dialup and DSL. It provides games on demand, video on demand, and IPTV services in India through TriBand.

Phone numbers belonging to MTNL start with the prefix 2 in fixed line telephones and WLL. In GSM, Mobile services start with the prefixes 901x, 9868, 9869, 9968, and 9969. MTNL also provides other services such as VPN, VOIP, and leased lines through BSNL and VSNL.

MTNL has been actively providing connections in both Mumbai and New Delhi areas and the efficiency of the company has drastically improved from the days when one had to wait years to get a phone connection to now when one can get a connection in even hours. MTNL has been actively providing communications in both Mumbai and New Delhi, and the efficiency of the company has drastically improved compared to the past, when a customers had to wait much longer to be connected. In the present, a customer can recieve a connection within hours of the request being submitted.^{[citation needed]}

Broadband

MTNL is the largest ISP in Mumbai and Delhi, and the second largest ISP in India.^{[citation needed]}

MTNL has also unveiled very cost-effective Broadband Internet access plans (TriBand) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present, MTNL enjoys the largest of the market share of ISP services in Mumbai and Delhi.

MTNL has upgraded existing TriBand (Broadband) connections for a speed of up to 2 MB/s. This service is at a cost of Rs 49 (USD 0.99) per month. Every additional 1MB download over the 200MB limit costs Rs 1 (USD 0.02) extra. MTNL claims to provide Unlimited Broadband plans without any “Fair Usage Policy” (FUP) or limitations regarding download and uploads.^{[citation needed]}

On 9 November 2011, MTNL launched Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) triple play high speed broadband service with core network speed up to 10 Gbps in Delhi. FTTH, with core network speed up to 1 Gbps, was launched in Mumbai on 1 March 2012. MTNL FTTH Broadband offers several services based on Triple play (voice-video-data) services like IPTV, HDTV, 3DTV, video on demand, bandwidth on demand, instant video conferencing, interactive gaming and several other value added services.

3G Mobile Service

MTNL started 3G services in India under the name of "MTNL 3G Jadoo." Services offered include Video call, Mobile TV and Mobile Broadband with high speed data connectivity up to 3.6 Mbit/s from 11 December 2008. MTNL plans to offer 3G services across India by mid-2009. MTNL also provides 3G data cards for usage in devices other than mobile phones. MTNL will be installing 15 lakh 3G lines in the first phase of its 3G roll-out in Mumbai and Delhi (which currently have 40 lakh existing mobile lines).

MTNL rolled out its BlackBerry solutions on the 2G and 3G networks by launching India’s first 3G enabled BlackBerry Bold smart phones.

Joint Venture(s)

Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Limited (MTML)

MTNL has set up its 100% subsidiary, Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Limited. (MTML) in Mauritius, for providing basic, mobile and international long distance services as second operator in Mauritius. Necessary licenses were obtained in January 2004. MTML has already started its ILD & CDMA based basic services in Mauritius. In Mauritius, 44,312 telephone connections are operational from a total switching capacity of 50,000. Moreover, through joint ventures with local telecommunications providers, MTML plans to offer Internet access through its wireless network by February 2007.

MTNL-STPI IT Services Limited

MTNL-STPI IT Services Ltd. is a 50:50 Joint Venture between Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, (MTNL). The joint venture formed in 2006 combines the STPI's rich experience as an ISP and MTNL's track record of being India's leading telecom operating company to offer niche portal services to the Indian community. The joint venture was formed to realize one of the 10-point agenda of MoC&IT, which are of extreme importance to India for bringing about an all-round economic development. The joint venture aims to provide exclusive data center services, messaging services, business application services to the identified sectors of economic activity and thereby also popularizing the .in domain in the networked community across the world.

Millennium Telecom Limited (MTL)

MTNL has restructured Millennium Telecom Ltd. (MTL) as a Joint Venture company of MTNL and BSNL with 50% and 50% equity participation respectively. The company will now be entering into new business stream of international long distance operations and will be executing a project of submarine cable system, both east and west from India.

BSNL - MTNL Merger Plans

On February 23, 2011, The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said it wanted to revive a proposal for the merger of state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL. In its draft plan, the DoT, while showing concern over the deteriorating performance of BSNL and MTNL, said that BSNL and MTNL should be merged as they have complimentary operations and can combine their strengths for synergies. DoT said the government should set up a multi-stakeholder committee to develop a restructuring plan for both firms. The committee should have members from public enterprises, the DoT, Department of IT, and Ministry of Finance. The telecommunication operators should focus on enterprise business, services to government and the public sector, value-added services, and technologies like 3G, the department recommends.

External links

• MTNL Official website
• MTNL Delhi Official site
• MTNL Mumbai Official site
• MTNL Centre for Excellence in Telecom Technology and Management (CETTM)