Broadband
BSNL to speed up broadband up to 2 MB at Rs 250 per month
MUMBAI: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) is planning to give a major push to broadband. The telecom major has decided to increase the speed by almost eight times, providing broadband up to 2 mb at Rs 250 per month.
The download has been increased by 2.5 times at almost half the cost, the company said. Till now the minimum bandwidth available to broadband customers was 256 Kbps. BSNL has now decided that all the home and business plans will offer data rates up to 2 Mbps, subject to technical feasibility.
“Under the new plan all the existing 820,000 customers are also being upgraded for the speed up to 2 Mbps, depending upon technical feasibility,” BSNL said.
The following changes in broadband data rates and downloading limits will come into effect from 1 January. BSNL is going to add the five million port capacity to the existing network of one million ports. “We at present have a 44 per cent market share in this segment. We also hold the prime position as the largest internet service provider of the country,” the company said.
The downloading limits in home 250 and business 700 plans have been enhanced to 1 GB and 4 GB from 400 MB and 2 GB respectively. The limits in other plans have been suitably enhanced. With the increase in downloading limit, a Plan 250 customer will get a benefit of Rs 840 per month for 1 GB limit and Business Plan 700 customer will get a benefit of Rs 2400 per month for limits up to 4GB.
BSNL has also decided to bring down the per MB downloading rates from Rs 1.40 per MB to Rs.0.90 per MB in Home 250 plan and the rates have also been lowered in other plans. The BSNL broadband service is available in 597 cities and towns.
The fixed monthly charges from ADSL modems has been reduced from Rs 100 to Rs 60 per month with effect from 1 December. This will benefit about 800000 customers of BSNL.
BSNL is already in the process of launching triple play services over broadband in Pune and subsequently in Chennai and Bangalore. It plans to start online gaming services over broadband soon under two categories, Standard and Premium packages, with monthly fixed charges of Rs 100 and Rs 200 respectively.
Broadband
Tejas Networks names Arnob Roy as MD and CEO, overhauls top leadership team
The Bengaluru-based telecom gear maker reshuffles its entire top team even as quarterly revenue collapses by 83 per cent
BENGALURU: Tejas Networks is changing the guard at the top, and doing so at speed. The Bengaluru-headquartered telecom equipment maker has elevated Arnob Roy as managing director and chief executive officer, effective April 15, 2026, for a term running through to August 3, 2028, and in the same breath announced new appointments across operations and finance. The timing is pointed: the company is navigating one of the roughest patches in its recent history.
Roy steps up from his role as executive director and chief operating officer, a position he has held since March 2019. He brings more than three decades of experience in the high-technology sector across research and development, operations, and sales. His predecessor, Anand Athreya, resigned last year citing personal reasons and was relieved on June 20, 2025, leaving a gap at the top that has now been formally filled.
The numbers Roy inherits are sobering. Tejas posted a net loss of Rs 211.3 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, a near-194 per cent widening year on year from Rs 71.8 crore in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter collapsed 82.6 per cent year on year to Rs 333 crore, down from Rs 1,907 crore. EBITDA swung to a loss of Rs 118.2 crore against a profit of Rs 121.5 crore a year ago. The culprit is not hard to identify: Tejas has derived the bulk of its revenue from BSNL’s fourth-generation network project, delivered as part of a Tata Consultancy Services-driven consortium, and that roll-out is now winding down.
Roy, speaking during a post-earnings conference call with analysts, was candid about where the company has been. “The BSNL 4G network went live across 100,000 sites. We deployed our largest indigenous router networks in the country through the BSNL MAN network, as well as in the BharatNet Phase 3 network,” he said, adding that Tejas had also successfully rolled out its 400G and 800G DWDM equipment in domestic and international markets, and continued the deployment of what it describes as the world’s largest satellite IoT network through its vehicle tracking system solution.
The pivot to new revenue streams is already under way. Tejas has partnered with Japan’s Rakuten Symphony and NEC Corporation to push deeper into international markets, with several Open Radio Access Network trials ongoing, one of which concluded recently. The company is also diversifying across equipment categories and geographies to sustain momentum as the BSNL chapter closes.
To prosecute that strategy, Roy needs a full team around him. Preetham Uthaiah has been appointed chief operating officer, moving up from his current role as vice president of product management for wireless products at Tejas Networks. Uthaiah brings nearly 30 years of global experience spanning engineering, product management, and business development across India and the United States. Before joining Tejas Networks, he served as executive vice president of product management, marketing, and strategy at Saankhya Labs, and held senior roles at Tech Mahindra on both sides of the Atlantic. He holds an MBA from Arizona State University and a degree in electronics and communications from Karnatak University.
On the finance front, AVS Prasad has been approved as chief financial officer, effective May 16, 2026, succeeding Sumit Dhingra, who has resigned. Prasad, currently serving as finance controller at Tejas Networks, brings over 27 years of experience within the Tata Group across telecom, aerostructures, and defence. A company secretary and cost and management accountant by training, he has spent more than 15 years in senior finance roles including CFO and financial controller positions, with expertise spanning corporate finance, treasury management, regulatory compliance, internal audit, and governance.
New chief executive, new chief operating officer, new chief financial officer — all installed in a single move, at a moment when the company’s largest revenue source is drying up and the next chapter remains unwritten. Tejas Networks has placed its bets. Now it has to deliver.
