BSNL Targets Pan India 4G Services by end of This Year, 12,000 4G sites Installed

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a government telecom company that has been facing difficulties for the last few years, has a target of starting 4G service across the country by the end of this year. The company can also launch 5G service next year. Big private telecom companies like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have already started their 5G service.

In a media report BSNL A senior BSNL official was quoted as saying, “4G sites have been started in all the four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Besides, sites have also been installed in state capitals like Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Raipur, Lucknow and Chandigarh.” He said that in hilly states like Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, BSNL is trying to convert most of its existing Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) into 4G sites. A BTS is a fixed radio transceiver in a mobile network. It is often in the form of a tower.

The central government had told the Parliament that by the end of March, BSNL had about 67,340 towers across the country. It has leased 12,502 towers to private telecom companies. Rs 82,916 crore has been allocated to BSNL in this year’s budget. In the budget, about Rs 1.28 lakh crore has been allocated for telecom projects and government companies under the Telecom Ministry. A large part of this has been given to BSNL.

The government can hand over the operations of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), which provides telecom services in the capital Delhi and Mumbai, to BSNL through an agreement. Earlier, the option of merging MTNL with BSNL was also considered. A final decision in this regard can be taken soon. Recently, a request was made to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for helping the company. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) had said that the presence of BSNL is important to control the dominance of private telecom companies in pricing. In a letter written to Prime Minister Modi, BMS had requested that it should be ensured that BSNL gets permission to use 4G and 5G related equipment from international vendors until indigenous technology is developed.