Govt owned pan India 3G service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) plans to offer its pan India customers with next generation high-speed 4G LTE service from early next year, 2015. For this BSNL is said to be in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm on infrastructure rent out.
“2014 is going to be a transition year for BSNL, as we are overhauling our operations and upgrading our networks. We are looking at providing 4G services by March 2015,” said Anupam Shrivastava, BSNL, Director for Consumer Mobility to The Economic Times.
India Govt is in process to separate the tower assets of BSNL into a new company, as BSNL holds over 65,000 towers across India, which makes it the second-biggest tower infrastructure provider. BSNL is actively looking to share this massive infrastructure with private operators, thus to generate some revenue to withstand it loss making telecom service.
BSNL is India’s top broadband service provider with broadband wireless access spectrum in 16 telecom circles, but it won’t be using that for 4G services because of the large capital expenditure involved.
BSNL is in talks with Reliance Jio to rent out its towers across the country. Reliance Jio on the other hand has already signed multiple contracts with other providers like Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and other telecom players. Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Jio Infocomm holds pan India 4G spectrum license and plans to start 4G service by August this year.