BANGALORE: Confronted with a backlog of approximately 12,000 applications for telephone connections, BSNL Bangalore is now planning to offer its 'Tarang' WLL connections to subscribers in areas where cable connections are unavailable. The roll out will kick off in March 2005.

Plans to improve Tarang's connectivity are also on the anvil. According to Bangalore Telecom District Principal GM Ganesh, approximately 3000 applications were pending in the urban areas as against 9000 in the rural. He said the company was in the process of strengthening the Tarang infrastructure by putting up more towers."

The present capacity for Tarang is 28,000 lines, with pans to increase this by another 15,000. As on April 2004 around 20,000 connections were provided in the city. Some persons had voluntarily withdrawn on their own, while some were disconnected by BSNL due to non-payment of bills," Ganesh offers.

Offering some numbers Ganesh claimed that BSNL was doing well. Against around 5000-6000 withdrawals, the company had fresh application for 7000-8000 connections per month. The number of mobile connections in Bangalore was equal to the landline connections - around 960,000 numbers each, he says.

BSNL has also redesigned it's website - to provide additional features such as itemized bill details of STD and ISD calls made by a customer over the last four months, and registration of landline complaints.