MTNL to Invest Rs 400 cr to Improve Mobile Network Coverage and increase 3G Internet Speed up to 21 Mbps

Reported by Sanjay October 14th, 2013 at 12:55 pm

India's first 3G Mobile and Data service provider Mahanagar telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has geared up to upgrade its current 3G Network into IP-based next generation 3G network with 6-fold speed - up to 21 Mbps services.

MTNL 3G

MTNL has floated tender for enhancing its current 3G and 2G GSM coverage in Delhi and Mumbai and plans to invest about Rs.400 crore to increase 3G mobile Internet (Data Network) speed by up to six times i.e. from 3.6Mbps to 21.1Mbps and also enhance the coverage of 2G EDGE mobile network in both circles.

Under the GSM - 3G Network up-graduation project, MTNL has plans to install about 1,500 new BTS (mobile towers) for existing 2G EDGE services, and about 2,000 new cell-sites for seamless 3G coverage across Delhi and Mumbai circle.

AK Garg, CMD MTNL
Shri A K Garg, Chairman and Managing Director, MTNL said "We have floated tender for enhancing 2G and 3G coverage in National Capital Region. Under this project, we are working to enhance maximum speed of 3G Internet by six times. The total project is estimated to cost us Rs 400 crore,"
"We were working on removing certain bottlenecks. We have succeeded in doing so. 3G services will only get better. We will have 750 BTS (mobile tower) each in Delhi and Mumbai circle for improvement of 2G EDGE coverage and 1,000 nodes for seamless 3G coverage (node-b). The only issue that we are facing is availability of locations for installing new BTS. We are looking for interest from people who want to get BTSs installed at their premise."

Nokia Solutions and Networks (earlier knows as NSN), Alcatel Lucent, Huawei and ZTE are in race for the MTNL's mobile network up-gradation project.The vendor for the project will be finalized by MTNL by the end of this month.

Presently MTNL has over 42 lakh mobile subscribers (GSM) in Mumbai and Delhi and all the connections are 3G enabled by default. As of now the maximum speed of data download on MTNL's 3G networks based on HSDPA technology is about 3.6 Mbps which will be u-graded to 21.1 Mbps by using HSPA+ technology after the project.