There's a question in many Indians mind about the BSNL's roll out of 4G services. The Government-owned company has been saying about the roll out of 4G services since 2014. But the company did not roll out the services yet. According to a new report from The Hindu Businessline, BSNL customers may possibly enjoy the 4G services by December 2017.
The report states that "BSNL Kerala will roll out 4G services in all the district headquarters major cities and towns of the state by December this year." “The equipment will be installed by September and customers will get to experience 4G by December’, R Mani, Chief General Manager, BSNL, Kerala Circle, said to the publication.
Back in December 2016, BSNL's CMD Anupam Shrivastava quoted that they are planning to roll out the first batch of 4G services in April 2017. "BSNL had originally planned to roll out 4G services in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode by March 2017. But tender formalities delayed the schedule," further says the report.
Furthermore, it is said that BSNL will install at least 2200 4G sites during the next one year in Kerala and will be made available to all district headquarters, major cities and towns.
BSNL will also upgrade the 3G sites, according to the report. R Mani also quoted that a total of 1100 new 3G sites and 300 new 2G sites will be deployed in coming days.
Alongside the 4G services, BSNL is also planning to add 200 Wi-Fi access points in the circle. The report says 'Wi-Fi hotspots with BSNL 4GPlus and mobile data offload are being planned at 311 locations across the state."
R. Mani also explained that the landline infrastructure would be upgraded this year. "Thrust is also being given on landline with the upgrade of the existing exchanges to the Next Generation Network (NGN) platform. It provides a host of value-added services and facilities like fixed mobile convergence and fixed-mobile telephony" stated Mani.
Currently, 136 exchanges have been migrated to NGN, and the remaining 806 are proposed for migration. He also said that 71 percent of Kerala circle now has BSNL 3G coverage, which is expected to reach 90 percent by the end of 2017.
