Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run telecom operator, recently announced the launch of about 98,000 4G sites across the country. For 5G, the company plans to update its 4G sites in the next six to eight months. The telecom minister of India, Jyotiraditya Scindia, recently confirmed that 4G network of BSNL will be upgraded to 5G in the next six-to-eight months.
Scindia mentioned that once the 4G tech stack industry was dominated by five companies - Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Huawei. All of these are foreign companies. India has now entered this league with the homegrown 4G technology. BSNL's 5G will also be homegrown, and will not have foreign vendors invovled in any stage of deployment or technology.
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"Today, India has entered the club with its own 4G standard. This is India's innovation capability and innovation enterprise. But we are not going to rest. Within the next six to eight months, we will be switching these 4G towers to 5G networks and providing end-to-end 5G network capability across the length and breadth of India," said Scindia.
India is now at a unique position to not only build its telecom infrastructure with indigenous technology, but also export it to other nations and grow the GDP (gross domestic product). BSNL's success with the indigenous technology will determine how well the global market will accept the technology. BSNL has already commissioned thousands of sites using homegrown technology, and thus, it will be interesting to see what happens from here.
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BSNL will likely want to upgrade to 5G as soon as possible to compete with the private telcos. Airtel and Jio have already been ahead in the 5G race, and now Vodafone Idea (Vi) has joined. BSNL is yet to join this league.
