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From: dheeraj@cs.umd.edu (Dheeraj Sanghi)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Telephones in India (part I of II)
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Date: 26 Sep 89 03:38:05 GMT
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 409, message 1 of 7

Shamim writes:
>In India the term for long distance is indeed STD. I'm not sure about
>ISD, though. I may as well take this opportunity for some
>reminiscences...  the phone system is, of course, a government
>monopoly under the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. They handle all
>phone lines, trunks, telex, microwave links, etc.

ISD is International Subscriber's Dialing or the direct dialing service
for international long distance. Well, parts of phone system have been
taken out of P & T Dept. e.g. Videsh Sanchar Nigam (Foreign
Communication Corporation) handles the international calls. Separate
telephone companies have been set up for phone system in Delhi and
Bombay. They are called MTNL - stands for Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.
There are plans to set up MTNLs for other big cities as well.
(Mahanagar is metropolitan area, Nigam is corporation.) Of course, VSN
and MTNLs are government undertakings, but they have much more autonomy.

There has been further liberalization.  Private sector companies have
now been allowed to make PABX, RABX (Rural Auto.  Branch Exchange) and
consumer items like telephones, answering machines etc.  The customers
now can hook up their own instruments.

>Ah, the telephone service! Those memories... some areas in New Delhi
>(where I grew up) have a waiting list of 10 years for a 'phone
>connection.  No DTMF dialing here, almost all the exchanges are
>mechanical. (About 5 years ago a digital switch was introduced on a
>trial basis - worked quite well, from what I remember.) In the summer
>after almost every rainstorm thousands (I'm not exaggerating!) would
>be knocked out.

Now, the waiting list is more like 5 years, and the goal is to provide
telephone on demand by 1995 (approx.).  All the exchanges that have
been installed in the last 3-4 years are digital.  In fact, all
exchanges that have been installed in the last year have custom calling
features like call-waiting and detailed billing for your STD and ISD
calls.  You even get the recording from these places like "The number
you have dialed is not in service" in 2 languages.  (3 languages in
many places outside Delhi.)  There are much less problems in rainy
season.  They have replaced old cables by pressurized cables, which are
more resistant to water-seepage, in congested areas.  And yes, they
have laid pipes to carry these cables, so that they don't have to dig
up the road if there is a problem with the cables.  The customer
service is much better.  The best part is that you no longer have to
pay by cash or cashier's check.  You can pay by personal check.  You
can still not mail them, but you can deposit them in almost any bank or
post office.  Last year the yellow pages were published for the first
time in India.

All this in just about 3-4 years. Three cheers for MTNL.

>STD was introduced about 10 years ago, I think, and was more expensive
>than the regular operator-assisted "trunk call." (To make one of those
>you had to call a number and book the call at some priority, with the
>cost increasing geometrically with higher priorities... it would often
>be 4-6 hours for the call to go through at the affordable priorities)
>The trunk call may still be cheaper than an STD call. The city codes
>for STD calls are of variable length - for instance New Delhi is 11
>but smaller towns have up to 4 digits.

Now, STD service has reached almost all the districts of India. The
longest code is 6 digits, for a few very small towns. The smallest code
is 2 digit. (Delhi - 11, Bombay - 22, Calcutta - 33, Madras - 44)

The access code for STD call is 0. It used to be 9 when STD started 15
years ago, but was phased out later. (I think CCITT standards favour
0.) ISD access code is, you guessed it, 00.

>Shamim Mohamed / {uunet,noao,allegra,cmcl2..}!arizona!sham / sham@arizona.edu

>[Moderator's Note: 'STD' means Subscriber Trunk Dialing, for those who did
>not know this abbreviation. It is a common enough phrase in some countries
>which essentially means 'long distance' as we think of it here in the United
>States. I might add to the above report, calling DA in India is quite a
>chore at times also. I've been on 15 minutes to get a single number.  PT]

Well, DA is being computerized in the 3 largest cities in India, Delhi,
Bombay and Calcutta. I hope that the project is over within this year.
The smaller cities would be computerized soon after.

In an accompanying article, I am writing about various tariffs in India.

-dheeraj

Dheeraj Sanghi			(h):301-345-6024	(o):301-454-1516
Internet: dheeraj@cs.umd.edu	UUCP: uunet!mimsy!dheeraj
	Marriage is the sole cause of divorce.