Abstract

It is worth mentioning that at present telephone especially mobile phone has become a necessity of life. Yet the socio economic environment in which a person is living also influences the telephone usage and preference. Hence, the socio economic factors and their influence on telephone usage of the people becomes an important area for research studies. This paper reviews the telephone usage profile of the respondents and their preference for BSNL and other private operators in the State of Nagaland. The primary objective of this paper is to study the respondents’ preference for BSNL and private operators. This study is an empirical one based on descriptive research design. The study is based on the primary data. In order to study the usage profile of the telephone users in Nagaland a survey was conducted in the selected districts of Nagaland. The data were collected from 450 sample respondents using a well-structured questionnaire.

Telecommunication service usage profile depends on a number of factors such as area of residence, age of the customers, gender, marital status, level of education, occupation, monthly income of the users and so on. The survey revealed that young generation people below 25 years of age are having an inclination towards the private operators. It is further observed that among the BSNL users 57.17% of the respondents are using post-paid service for which a minimum monthly rental is paid, which is neither popular nor affordable for the poor sections of the society. On the other hand, private service is popular among all sections of the society irrespective of their level of income. But it is more popular among the lower income group and especially among the students. Among the private service users, only 5.31% are using post-paid service. The study further concludes that private operators could increase the number of customers gradually over the period as against the shrinking market share of BSNL