Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run Indian telecom operator, now has 39,000 4G sites up and running. The telecom operator has a target of reaching 1,00,000 4G sites by early or mid-2025. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), the company that is leading the consortium which also includes Tejas Networks and the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) is responsible for deploying 4G and maintaining the sites for years to come for BSNL.
In a conversation with ET, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, Advisor, Telecom Strategic Initiatives at TCS & Chairman, Tejas Networks, said that they have delivered equipment for about 58,000-59,000 sites. This month alone, the equipments have been delivered for about 10,000 to 12,000 sites. The next step is to install. Amongst this, 49,000 sites have been installed, and approximately 38,000 to 39,000 sites have been commissioned.
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Subramaniam confirmed that they are now installing about 450 to 500 sites every day and commissioning 400 to 500 sites daily.
All 1 Lakh BSNL Sites to Have 700 MHz Band Connectivity
Subramaniam said that BSNL's all 1 lakh 4G sites will have 700 MHz band connectivity. In the urban areas, there will be sites that will also have other bands including 2100 MHz, 1800 MHz, 850 MHz, and 900 MHz for additional capacity and coverage. The sites which have been installed so far are present in both urban and rural areas of the country.
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The target to reach 1 lakh sites is by next year for the company. However, that may not be enough and the decision to further add more sites from there will be very much required, believe many industry experts. Apart from BSNL, it is only Jio that is using the 700 MHz band, but that is for 5G. In India, only BSNL will be the telco that will be using 700 MHz band for offering 4G services, primarily because it can provide extensive coverage. One disadvantage to using 700 MHz band is that it doesn't offer much speeds.
