BSNL is now confident of launching 4G services in the country by the end of the current financial year (March 2020), according to BSNL Chairman, PK Purwar. Furthermore, he also confirmed that the revival package for BSNL would come out in the next month, while the 4G spectrum allocation to happen by the end of 2019. While this news from the company's Chairman may sound redundant to some, he seems to be actually confident this time around. For the unaware, BSNL has been promising its customers of launching 4G services since the year 2014, but nothing happened. That said, the reason for BSNL not launching high-speed 4G service to the customers is the lack of required spectrum. However, under the revival package which is set to come out in a month, there will be some related news regarding the allocation of 4G spectrum.
BSNL Already Testing 4G in Various Parts of India
BSNL is in deep troubles right now as the company is constantly failing to generate revenues. With the help of 4G services, private telcos are generating a lot of revenue from data services. However, PK Purwar believes that BSNL should be able to generate revenues once it rolls out 4G services in the country. According to him, the long-awaited revival package for BSNL will arrive in less than a month, followed by 4G spectrum allocation by the end of 2019.
With the received 4G spectrum, it will take BSNL another 3-4 months to launch 4G services in the country. "We expect that BSNL should be able to launch 4G services by the end of this financial year. We expect that within the end of this calendar year itself, the 4G spectrum will be allocated", said Purwar, as reported by ET Telecom.
BSNL is actively testing 4G services in various parts of the country. In Kerala telecom circle, BSNL is the leading service provider with over one crore customers under its belt. In most parts of Kerala, BSNL already closed 3G services and customers are only able to use 4G and 2G services from the company. In some circles, it even launched affordable 4G tariff plans which were even better than those of Jio's 4G plans.
BSNL to Clear Employee Salaries Before Diwali
For the unaware, BSNL has been making losses for over ten years now and in the financial year of 2018-19, the telco posted over Rs 14,000 crore losses, for the first time. This made the government think about the future of BSNL, but time by time, BSNL rubbished the rumours of a probable shutdown. It's not confident that the revival package will arrive within a month which will provide a solution for all the current financial woes.
In other news, BSNL did not even employee salaries for the month of September. However, the company's Chairman confirmed that every employee would receive the salary before Diwali. "All around the telecom industry is going through a challenging phase, in which all the operators are finding it financially challenging with very competitive tariff rates. We have a legacy issue, which we are trying to address with a revival package. We expect that within weeks it should be in place," Purwar further added.
The revival package will probably show a solution for the state-run telco's woes, but at the same time, the package is in the works for more than a year now. So, it will be interesting to see when the revival package arrives and how BSNL makes use of it.
