40. VSNL: Future-proof?

The most impressive thing about VSNL’s performance in the last fiscal was a high growth in its Internet subscriber base–it surged by 72% to a record 630,970, against the previous year’s 366,432. Can it be interpreted as the monolith’s capability to keep performing well even in the

post-disinvestment environment? The answer lies with the ensuing fiscal. However, the company will need to take a whole new approach to customer services and marketing.

The number of leased data circuits (64 kbps and above) also witnessed a three-fold rise, from 1,634 to 4,916. The fiscal saw VSNL slashing the cost of satellite leased line links by 40%. This was preceded by a 70% reduction on leased line tariffs in Mumbai and Cochin. It reduced and rationalized the tariff structure for Web-hosting and co-location for customers using VSNL servers.

The company also undertook some targeted initiatives to tackle the bandwidth issue–it commissioned an additional stream of 155 Mbps from its Mumbai Gigabit Internet Exchange. This put its “available” bandwidth at 1,000 Mbps.