Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run telecom operator, has just shared that it has reached a milestone of 41,000 4G sites. This comes after a few weeks since the announcement from the telecom minister that the telco has depl0yed and commissioned 39,000 4G sites, and then just last week, the telco had achieved the milestone of 40,000 sites. The pace at which BSNL is installing and commissioning the 4G sites will enable the company to go live with 1 lakh 4G sites by the end of the current financial year or mid-2025.
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BSNL is receiving its RAN (radio access network) equipment from Tejas Networks while the core is provided by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT). The 41000 sites from BSNL are present in both urban and rural areas of the country.
BSNL's 4G plans are currently the most affordable in the country. The only problem is, its 4G networks are not present everywhere. BSNL 4G is available in certain cities, but the coverage is not very seamless if you are travelling or moving around. The telco aims to resolve this soon and also plans to upgrade to 5G in the near future.
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BSNL is expected to launch its 5G network by Makarsankantri in 2025. While many believe that it is 4G that the telco should be more focused towards, there's no denying that 5G would help with competing against the private telcos. At present, BSNL has been able to garner the customers of the private telcos due to offering lower tariffs. Now the telco has to ensure that these customers do not port back to the private telecom operators, and that will only be possible with a rapid 4G rollout. For the first two months of the September 2024 quarter, BSNL is the only telecom operator which has added new users.
