Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has not been able to launch 4G at scale due to waiting for the homegrown technology from TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) to arrive. While officials from BSNL have said several times that they are going to start launching 4G soon, there's no saying at what stage the technology is in right now. Due to the absence of 4G, BSNL has been losing its customers to private telecom operators, who are also offering 4G at no additional cost.
Looking at the situation, BSNL employees have made an unusual request to the Indian government. BSNL employees have asked the government to use Vodafone Idea's 4G networks to offer 4G to customers of BSNL. The employees have asked the government to take this as a temporary measure to stop customers from porting out of BSNL's networks in the short term.
According to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) data, BSNL lost 22,20,654 subscribers in August 2023 and 23,26,751 customers in September 2023. In a letter to the telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, BSNL EU (employee union) attributed the loss of customers to the absence of high-speed networks.
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BSNL 4G to Launch in December 2024
BSNL's 4G will launch in December of 2024, said the EU in the letter, mentioning that these are the words of CMD (Chairman and Managing Director) P K Purwar. The EU again mentioned that the field trials of the said technology (by TCS) have not been completed even to date.
Since the Indian government is the largest stakeholder in Vodafone Idea (Vi), BSNL EU has requested the government to utilise the 4G network of Vi to offer BSNL customers 4G.
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As futile as the suggestion from BSNL EU is, it just shows the desperate situation of the employees of the state-run telecom operators. Even if the government wanted to, it wouldn't make any sense to use the 4G capacity of Vi to offer services to BSNL customers. Since Vi is a public company, its shareholders or the board would never go for the decision.
