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Union IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran, who launched the services here, said the aim was to achieve a target of one million customers by December 31, 2005. The services were launched by Minister of State for IT Shakeel Ahmed in New Delhi.
BSNL's services in West Bengal were inaugurated by Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee in Kolkata, by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy in Hyderabad and Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh in Bangalore.
Maharashtra Industries Minister Ashok Chavan launched the MTNL broadband services in Mumbai.
The broadband Internet services, which will have a minimum speed of 256 kbps (kilo bits per second), will be 17.5 times faster than a dial-up connection and about eight times faster than ISDN.
Maran said the tariffs fixed by BSNL and MTNL for the broadband connection at Rs 500 per month (for home users) and Rs 1200 (for business units) was aimed at bringing high-speed Internet access to the rural masses.
The tariffs of other Internet service providers are much higher -- Tata Indicom's Rs 1500 per month, Airtel's Rs 1400 per month and Sify's Rs 2750 per month. "BSNL and MTNL have the cheapest tariffs for broadband," he said.
Customers should have a BSNL (or MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai) landline connection, a personal computer with 10/100 Ethernet port, and a Windows 98 operating system, to use the 'Data One' broadband connection.
A K Sinha, chairman and managing director, BSNL, said by March 31, 2005, BSNL would provide 50,000 broadband connections.
The PSU has also set a target of achieving two million customers in 2006 and three million in 2007. "We are hopeful of achieving this target," he said.