The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd is in the process of setting up a parallel marketing channel by appointing franchisees.

Through the new channel, MTNL plans to make available its entire range of services to customers.

MTNL has been sprucing up its sales and marketing operations to meet competition from private sector players in all the areas of telephony services.

It has already roped in international consultants Accenture to overhaul and strengthen its operations.

"We are working towards a fast moving consumer goods-retail model. We intend to have franchisees who will market our entire range of services -- basic telephony, cellular and limited mobility services as well as Internet and broadband services," according to a MTNL official.

The company will put this model in place within the next three months. The franchisee will, in turn, spread their own retail distribution network.

The MTNL official said, "Besides offering MTNL products to customers, it will also do sales promotion of all its services/products such as virtual calling cards, limited mobility services under Garuda and also pre-paid Trump cards and post-paid Dolphin."

MTNL is also widening and strengthening its internal reach with quick customer care centres particularly for its cellular services.

Besides these, it will also help customers hook on to Internet services offered by MTNL. "We expect post-paid Internet connections to easily cross 4.5 lakh (450,000) customers in Mumbai," he said.