BSNL is India's oldest and largest Communication Service Provider (CSP). Currently BSNL has a customer base of 65.3 million (Basic & Mobile telephony). It has footprints throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi which are managed by MTNL. As on July 31, 2007 BSNL commanded a customer base of 32.7 million Wireline, 3.7 million CDMA-WLL and 28.9 million GSM Mobile subscribers. BSNL's earnings for the Financial Year ending March 31, 2007 stood at INR 397.15b (US$ 9.67 b) with net profit of INR 78.06b (US$ 1.90 billion). Today, BSNL is India's largest Telco and one of the largest Public Sector Undertaking of the country with authorized share capital of US$ 4.26 billion (INR 17,500 Crores) and assets of US$ 14.74 billion.
a well known fact that BSNL was carved out of Department of Telecom to provide level playing field to private telecoms.Subsequently in 1990s the telecom sector was opened up by the Government for Private investment, therefore it became necessary to separate the Government's policy wing from Operations wing. The Government of India corporatised the operations wing of DoT on October 01, 2000 and named it as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).BSNL operates as a public sector.Main Services being provided by BSNL
BSNL provides almost every telecom service, however following are the main Telecom Services being provided by BSNL in India:-
1. Universal Telecom Sevices : Fixed wireline services & Wireless in Local loop (WLL) using CDMA Technology called bfone and Tarang respectively. BSNL is dominant operator in fixed line. As on March 31, 2007 (end of financial year) BSNL had 76% share of fixed and WLL phones.
Cellular Mobile Telephone Services: BSNL is major provider of Cellular Mobile Telephone services using GSM platform under brandname Cellone. Pre-paid Cellular services of BSNL are know as Excel. As on March 31, 2007 BSNL had 17% share of mobile telephony in the 
country.
Internet: BSNL is providing internet as dial-up connection (Sancharnet) and ADSL-Broadband Dataone. BSNL has around 50% marketshare in broadband in India. BSNL has planned aggressive rollout in broadband for current financial year.4. Intelligent Network (IN): BSNL is providing IN services like tele-voting, toll free calling, premium calling etc
During Financial Year 2006-2007 (From April 01, 2006 to March 31, 2007) BSNL has added 9.6 million new customers in various telephone services taking its customer base to 64.8 million. BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel is standing at a customer base of 39 million. However, despite impressive growth shown by BSNL in recent times, the Fixed line customer base of BSNL is declining. In order to woo back its fixed-line customers BSNL has brought down long distance calling rate under OneIndia plan, however, the success of the scheme is not known. However, BSNL faces bleak fiscal 2006-2007 as users flee, which has been accepted by the CMD BSNL.[3]
Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and various Telcos 
are rolling out attractive schemes and are providing good customer services. However, BSNL being legacy operator and its conversion from a Government Department, earns lot of criticism for its poor customer service. Although in recent past there have been tremendous improvement in working of BSNL but still it is much below the Industry's Expectations. A large aging (average age 49 years(appx)) workforce (300,000 strong), which is mostly semi-illetrate or illeterate is the main reason for the poor customer service. Further, the Top management of BSNL is still working in BSNL on deputation basis holding Government employee status thus having little commitment to the organisation. Although in coming years the retirement profile of the workforce is very fast and around 25% of existing workforce will retire by 2010, however, still the workforce will be quite large by the industry standards. Quality of the workforce will also remain an issue.
Access Deficit Charges (ADC, a levy being paid by the private operators to BSNL for provide service in non-lucarative areas especially rural areas) has been slashed by 37% by TRAI, w.e.f. April 01, 2007.[4] The reduction in ADC may hit the bottomlines of BSNL.
BSNL is in the process of finalising a Mega tender for rollout of 60 million GSM lines. The tender has invited a controversy, when one of the bidders Motorola was disqualified by BSNL on technical grounds and Motorola has approached the court. BSNL was allowed to process the tender, however, the Court had restrained BSNL from awarding the tender. Motorola on April 16, 2007 has withdrawn its petition from the High Court thus clearing the decks for BSNL for placement of order.[5][6]
BSNL has narrowly missed out the coveted 'Navratna' status of Indian PSUs because of a technicality, however the apex committee has kept its case alive, and same may be reconsidered.[7]
Former Indian Telecom Minister Thiru Dayanidhi Maran has set an aggressive targets for BSNL. They have been asked to double their annual turnover to US$ 20 billion in next 3 years by 27 percent year on year growth.[8]
Thiru Dayanidhi Maran had resigned from Union Cabinet and Thiru Andimuthu Raja has taken over as new Indian Communications Minister in May 2007. Thiru Raja a DMK Party MP was earlier working as Indian Environment & Forest Minister. [1]
BSNL is going to invest US$ 13.7b (Rs 60,000 crores) in next 3 years.[9]
BSNL is India's no. 1 brand recall.[10]
During March 2007, BSNL has added 2.6 million customers, highest addition by BSNL in a month so far[11]
BSNL is set to shift its headquarters to its own building christened as Bharat Sanchar Bhawan situated at Harish Chandra Mathur Lane, Janpath, New Delhi.
