Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run telecom operator in India, has ordered equipment for fresh 4G sites across India. These new sites will added to new locations, and will help in expanding 4G coverage. These new sites have been ordered from the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and ITI (state-run company). BSNL has ordered 13,785 and 5,314 new 4G sites at a cost of Rs 3,033 crore.
BSNL has said that it has issued, “a purchase order (PO) for planning, engineering, supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of 4G network sites in Northeast and South zones, including Delhi licensed service area (LSA) on a turnkey basis under phase IX.2 add-on project.”
This order comes as over 7,100 new 4G sites were awarded to BSNL under the 4G saturation program. ITI got the orders here because of the reservation quota of 20%. Thus, 5,314 new sites went to ITI at a cost of Rs 588 crore for the West Zone, including Mumbai. In Mumbai, it is actually BSNL which operates and maintains the MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) sites. It is the same in Delhi as well.
TCS and ITI have already submitted performance bank guarantee and surety bonds, respectively, for Rs 58.07 crore and Rs 22.85 crore, last year. TCS has already done plenty of work for BSNL at scale. TCS works as the systems integrator (SI) in a consortium with Tejas Networks, who is responsible for supplying the equipment, and C-DoT (Centre for Development of Telematics) which provides the network core.
All of these sites can be upgraded to 5G at no major additional cost. It will just require a software push and BSNL will be able to offer 5G NSA (Non-Standlone) services to the users. BSNL will be able to add more 4G users by spreading the sites and improving the coverage experience. Stay tuned to TelecomTalk for more such updates.
Source: https://telecomtalk.info/bsnl-orders-26238-4g-sites-tcs-iti/1009713/
