Chennai: Telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) plans to invest around Rs20,000 to upgrade and expand its network. Though the original investment envisaged was Rs12,000 crore, the additional increase is for expansion of its mobile services.

According to chairman and managing director A K Sinha, BSNL will be adding around 70 lakh mobile subscribers this year. "The landline and wireless in the local loop will bring in around 30 lakh subscribers."

For BSNL, the ratio of prepaid:post paid subscribers is 70:30. "The average revenue per user (ARPU) is Rs600 in the case of prepaid and Rs350 under postpaid schemes," says Sinha. The ARPU in the case of landline users is Rs570.

According to him, BSNL will close this fiscal with a turnover of Rs34,000 crore. "For the first half of this year we posted a revenue of Rs16,500 crore." On the impact of the recent changes in the access deficit charges, he says that the company will lose around Rs1,254 crore every year.

"The increase in traffic due to this reduction will be just 5 per cent and not 35 per cent as projected," he adds.