Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run Indian telecom operator, has been asked by Nokia and Ericsson to tweak its 5G tender. The request from the two major telecom gear vendors comes to ensure they also get a chance to provide BSNL with the relevant technology. There's just one issue with it, the government doesn't want that. The current tender that BSNL has rolled out for 5G deployment in Delhi Circle is only for companies that are providing indigenous technology. Even for 4G, BSNL is only going with the indigenous technology route.
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According to a Financial Express report, Nokia and Ericsson have asked BSNL to tweak the rules of its 5G tender so that they can also participate. For the unaware, BSNL is looking to deploy 5G SA (standalone) in Delhi across 1876 circles. The telco wants to work on a revenue-sharing model, where it gets 70% of the revenues, and the 30% goes to the vendor operating and maintaining the sites.
Last week, BSNL said that it successfully completed a pre-bid meeting with officials from 29 companies which included names such as L&T, Tejas, TCS, Lekha, VVDN, HFCL, Nokia, Ericsson, and more. In the meeting, BSNL extended the last date of submission for the bids to December 16, 2024. The industry wants the revenue share to be in a manner where BSNL gets 30% of the revenues and 70% goes to vendors.
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Nokia and Ericsson have seen a sharp decline in the 5G orders in India as Airtel and Jio slowed down the 5G rollout. Now the next major orders for 5G equipment are expected from Vodafone Idea (Vi). It is very unlikely that the government will budge and allow BSNL to let foreign vendors participate in this 5G rollout in Delhi.
