BSNL will provide 4G through equipment provided by a consortium led by Indian company TCS
Indian state-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) is expecting to launch commercial 4G services next month, Indian newspaper Financial Express reported.
According to the reports, the telco is already receiving equipment from a consortium led by compatriot company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The supply of equipment is part of the pre-order for 200 sites to initially launch 4G services in parts of three districts of Punjab – Ferozepur, Pathankot and Amritsar.
“While the government is expected to approve the complete tender to TCS for equipment for 100,000 4G sites by the end of March, this installation is part of the pilot project to launch 4G starting from Punjab,” a government official said, adding that TCS, through Tejas Networks, has supplied equipment for about 50 sites.
“We are expecting to complete about 100 sites for 4G launch by mid-March, and if everything goes as per the timeline, the commercial launch will happen in parts of Punjab in April,” the official told Financial Express.
Last month, the BSNL board approved a deal with a TCS-led consortium, which includes Tejas Networks and C-DoT. According to the report, the government still has to approve this deal. Apart from the TCS consortium, state-owned telecom equipment maker ITI had also participated in the BSNL tender, according to the report.
As part of the proof of concept last year, the indigenous 4G, 5G stack to be used by BSNL was also tested for 10 million simultaneous phone calls, according to the government.
“The indigenous equipment has been successfully tested. However, once we roll out 4G on these sites commercially, we will see what kind of challenges come up as it is a new technology and there can be some initial hiccups. These sites are also immediately upgradable to 5G,” a government official was quoted as saying.
According to the report, BSNL lost 7.7 million mobile subscribers last year due to the delays in the launch of 4G services, taking its total base to 106.6 million at the end of December, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
In January, the country’s Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said that BSNL could launch 5G technology in March 2024. Vaishnaw also clarified that initially, BSNL’s 5G network will be based on the NonStandalone (NSA) architecture.
In December 2022, BSNL asked the Indian government for more spectrum for the future deployment of 5G technology.
According to the reports, the Indian government has already set aside 5G frequencies for the operator. However, India’s Minister of State for Telecom Devusinh Chauhan confirmed that BSNL is seeking more 5G airwaves than what has been already reserved for it. The minister said that BSNL also wants airwaves in the 700 MHz band.
