Prime Minister AB Vajpayee speaking on a cellphone during his recent Kohima visit

Dimapur, Nov. 12: The long wait for mobile telephony is over. A potentially long wait for a connection has just begun.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has advised residents of Nagaland not to jump the gun and procure mobile handsets in expectation of connections on demand.

Such is the level of public enthusiasm over the introduction of the CellOne service that BSNL is contemplating conducting a lottery to determine who gets the first batch of connections in Kohima and Dimapur. A source said the same method might be used in other places of the region when the mobile phone service is launched.

Both Kohima and Dimapur will initially get 2,000 connections each, but 300 of those in Kohima and 200 in Dimapur will be reserved for senior officials, legislators and other special-category consumers under BSNL norms. The message from BSNL to potential subscribers is, therefore, plain and simple: “Do not rush to a cellphone shop, not until your name is announced.”

The date and venue of the proposed lottery have yet to be finalised, but BSNL today began distributing application forms.

These will be available at counters of telephone exchanges in Kohima and Dimapur between 11am and 4pm.

Cellphone users in the state can avail of value-added services such as STD, national roaming and SMS from the beginning. The registration fee has been fixed at Rs 500, while the activation fee is Rs 200. For a local call connection, Rs 1,000 will have to be deposited as security and another Rs 1,000 for STD facility.

BSNL was flooded with inquiries about CellOne immediately after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the service during his visit to Kohima last month.

Chief general manager A.C. Debnath, who is in charge of BSNL services in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, said mobile telephony would be launched in the other states by March. “After Kohima, it will be Imphal. By March, all states of the Northeast will have access to the CellOne service. The required equipment is being ferried to Manipur,” he said.

Delhi promised mobile phone services in the entire region in 2000, but the arduous process of getting the mandatory clearance from the defence and home ministries extended the wait.