State-owned BSNL is set to kickstart the rollout of 4G services pan India from August, employing entirely indigenous technology in line with the government's "Atmanirbhar" policy, as per official sources. BSNL officials have claimed to achieve peak speeds of 40-45 megabits per second on the 4G network, which has been deployed in the premium spectrum band of 700 megahertz (MHz) as well as in the 2,100 MHz band during the pilot phase.
The corporation has already commenced 4G services in Punjab, employing technology developed domestically by IT firm TCS and the state-run telecom research organisation C-Dot-led consortium and has onboarded approximately eight lakh subscribers.
The 4G core developed by C-Dot is performing admirably in the BSNL network in Punjab. It was installed in July last year. It generally takes 12 months to demonstrate the success of such intricate technology, but the C-Dot core has stabilised within 10 months. BSNL will be introducing Atmanirbhar 4G technology nationwide in August, a senior government official, who chose to remain anonymous, informed PTI.
The core network comprises network hardware, devices and software that furnish fundamental services in a telecommunication network. Telecom regulator Trai, in a recent paper, elucidated the core as a segment of a network that provides functionalities like aggregation, call control, switching, authentication, charging, gateway functionality, etc.
TCS, Tejas Networks and government-owned ITI have secured orders worth around Rs 19,000 crore from BSNL for deploying the 4G network, which is upgradable to 5G.
During a recent earnings call, Tejas Networks Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Arnob Roy stated that BSNL's mobile network deployment is underway across zones.
He mentioned that wherever the C-Dot core is not accessible on the BSNL network, the equipment is being integrated into the existing core. Once the C-Dot core is deployed in those circles they will be integrated with the C-Dot core as well. This is merely a temporary scenario where the RAN (radio access network) is deployed and in that zone, the core is unavailable, Roy clarified.
BSNL is presently in the process of setting up 1.12 lakh towers for 4G and 5G services nationwide.
The corporation has erected over 9,000 towers for 4G service across the country, of which more than 6,000 are operational in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, UP West and the Haryana circle. BSNL has been vending 4G-capable SIM cards for the past 4-5 years. Only customers with older SIM cards will require new ones to enjoy the service, stated a BSNL official.
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