With all private telecom operators pushing hard to capture the lucrative data heavy 4G market in India, the Government owned BSNL is jumping into the centre of 4G bandwagon in India.
The state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is planning to roll out high-speed 4G services in fourteen telecom circles, following the soft launch of 4G services in Chandigarh.
BSNL will be rolling out the 4G services under its own 20 MHz liberalized broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum in 2,500 MHz band which comes with no licensing hurdles.
The operator has already paid around 8313.80 crores for the spectrum in all its service areas but later returned airwaves in six telecom circles which include Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kolkata.
“BSNL will be installing 4G base tower stations (BTS) in the existing GSM sites, which means there will be no additional expenditure on towers” said a senior BSNL official to PTI.”By considering all the facts, it appears that launch of 4G services in 2,500 Mhz band is feasible and commercially remunerative,” he added.
The company is exploring revenue sharing model and CapEx model for the 4G rollout. Under the revenue sharing model, BSNL will be extending passive infrastructure and BWA spectrum whereas other elements like BTS will be arranged by the vendor or franchise. Which seems to be more cost effective, as the operator will not incur any expenditure and vendor will completely borne all the investment.
On the CapEx model, BSNL will procure essential LTE (long-term evolution) elements in some selected cities on an experimental basis, but it involves procurement cost and integration cost.
BSNL will explore both the models before taking a final call on the 4G rollout across this 14 telecom circles which include Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North East and Orissa.