Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications & Information Technology inaugurated the new building of MTNL “Mahanagar Doorsanchar Bhawan”, here today, in the presence of Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Shri Nripendra Misra, Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Shri D.S. Mathur, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and senior officers of DoT, TRAI, BSNL and MTNL. The Minister also inaugurated the new office of TRAI located in the same complex.

The new building of MTNL is fully equipped to cater to the needs of the East Delhi region serving more than 2.2 lakh customers. The building will house futuristic services of the MTNL like convergent billing, 3-G, NGN, IP-MPLS, etc. The convergent billing system will enable the MTNL to provide single bill of all services against multiple bills. In addition it will enable the MTNL to roll out its services faster and in an efficient manner. This will further enable the customers of the MTNL to access through Internet the status of their bills on real-time basis.

Speaking on the sidelines, Shri Maran said that the convergent billing system of MTNL will come into effect from 31st March, next year. He further announced that all the existing broadband customers of MTNL will be automatically upgraded to the speed of upto 2 Mbps from the existing 256 Kbps from 1st January, 2007 at the existing rates.

Keeping in view the year 2007 being declared as “Year of Broadband” in India by the Department of Telecom, the enhancement of broadband speed will further popularise the usage of the broadband in the country. It may be recalled that BSNL has already announced to provide broadband upto 2 Mbps from 1st January, 2007.

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