In what could be a bonanza for net surfers and die-hard talkers, BSNL is looking at bundling broadband services with its popular One India scheme that offers STD at Re 1 per minute.

At fixed rentals of Rs 340 per month, users will not only get to call across India for just Re 1 per minute, but can also surf at high speeds of 2 Mbps. BSNL has managed to mop up over 1 crore subscribers from its One India plan, launched in February last year.

“By offering broadband with One India at an extra charge of Rs 160 per month, BSNL is looking at earning additional annual revenues of Rs 160 crore. New users signing up for One India will also take up broadband. This is likely to take BSNL’s annual broadband revenues to over Rs 600 crore,” a source told ET.

BSNL charges a monthly rental of Rs 180 for the One India plan. “This will be increased to Rs 280 and an additional Rs 60 per month will be rental for modem. The final decision is likely to be announced by May this year,” the source added. BSNL is betting big on broadband to push fixed line subscriber base and revenues. Its broadband user base is 9 lakh, leading to annual revenues of Rs 400 crore.

The average per subscriber revenue is Rs 350-400 per month. “We are also looking at migrating our 23 lakh dial-up users to broadband at nominal charges,” a BSNL official said. BSNL will spend Rs 2,000 crore in broadband infrastructure and is planning to add a capacity for 50 lakh subscribers.

“We have placed orders for 30 lakh lines and new capacity will start coming in from March,” the official added. Offering broadband requires last mile, which refers to fanning out of cables to the user’s premises from the telephone exchange. This being a difficult task, private operators have been calling for unbundling of BSNL’s last mile. However, it has refused to do so.