MAM
BSNL to expand broadband, mobile connectivity in Karnataka
BANGALORE: India’s largest telecom service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has aggressive expansion plans for the southern state Karnataka.
BSNL’s Karnataka circle, Bangalore Telecom, yesterday announced the release of 1.1 million SIM cards for mobile phone users, as well as increased broadband connectivity for Karnataka in the coming fiscal.
The announcement was made during the release of an updated two-volume Bangalore supplementary directory listing BSNL connections across the entire state.
BSNL is pumping in Rs 2.54 billion to increase mobile connectivity from its existing 700,000 connection base to 1.1 million and doubling its terminals to 2,654 over the next four months. Chief general manager -Karnataka Circle S Ramaganapathy said that mobile connectivity would spread to 343 towns in addition to the existing 319 centers. Of the 1.1 million new connections announced, around 1 million would be pre-paid, while the rest would be post-paid.
An additional 45,000 wireless local loop (WLL) lines (which don’t require telephone cable connecting the instruments) have been commissioned to clear the waiting list for landline connections in rural areas.
Additionally, 700 kilometers of optical fiber would be laid by the end of the month.
Ramaganapthy also highlighted the success of Bangalore Telecom’s Data-One broadband service saying that 20,000 connections, including 6,000 in Bangalore alone, had been given. BSNL plans to introduce broadband services to Mangalore by the end of this month and cover 13 more districts in the state over the next three to four months.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
