In final commercial discussion with TCS for BSNL 4G network rollout: Telecom Minister By CIOtechOutlook Team

In final commercial discussion with TCS for BSNL 4G network rollout: Telecom Minister

CIOtechOutlook Team | Friday, 29 April 2022, 03:41 IST

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is in a final stage to work out the commercials involved in procuring next generation (4G) equipment for 6,000 sites, Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said Thursday.

"We are in a final stage of working on commercials (with TCS) to deploy 6,000 telecom sites," Vaishnaw told ETTelecom, adding that the department is working in a systematic way, and in order to take a technological leap, has to take a risk too.

Further he said that the world is looking at India seriously as it has come out with indigenously-developed 4G technology, which is upgradable to 5G, taking the nation to the elite club of countries dominating the technology developments worldwide.

BSNL is set to deploy commercial next generation services backed by India's homegrown technology that included core network equipment developed by state-run Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) which is affordable as compared to multinationals.

However, the minister added that there is a need to handhold the domestic technology that has a scope of improvements with further versions.

On March 31, BSNL placed an order with the Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to procure equipment for 6,000 radio sites to be deployed on 2100 MHz and another 400 on 900 MHz frequency bands in both urban and rural areas.

TCS, however, is yet to accept the price offered at Rs 560-crore, and is currently negotiating with the telecom department.

Vaishnaw added that in order to empower C-DoT, the department has provided funds from the general budget. "With C-DoT, we'll have a full technology stack of 5G by early 2023, and domestic manufacturers are already in a position to export 5G equipment."

On asking about the vendor selection criteria for upgrading 2G sites to 4G in Left Wing Extremism (LWE-I) program, Vaishnaw said that although C-DoT has developed 4G core network indigenously but the government would go with the BSNL process with preference to Make in India.

In 2017, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had come out with a Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) policy initiative to promote domestic manufacturing of products in order to encourage local trade and employment opportunities.

The telecom department is expecting to upgrade 2,343 sites across 10 states by the end of next year.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed Cabinet approved the upgradation of sites at an estimated cost of Rs 1,884.58-crore in the Red Corridor region.

In 2016, the state-owned telecom service provider deployed LWE-I mobile network initiative, backed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) across 10 states in a record time of less than 18 months using indigenously designed, developed and manufactured telecom equipment supplied by homegrown vendor partners VNL and HFCL.

“We have executed the Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-I project with 99% uptime, and even after five years of network deployment, we are able to provide good quality of services,” BSNL chairman PK Purwar earlier said.

Following 6,400 sites, the state-run telco is expected to further deploy 50,000 sites each in two phases.