India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reportedly awarded 5G spectrum worth INR610 billion to state-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to ready the telco for its planned launch of 5G services sometime this year.
ETTelecom reported on Wednesday that DoT allocated spectrum in the 700-MH, 3300-MHz and 26-GHz bands to BSNL for 5G usage. No timeline has yet been released regarding an official launch date, but BSNL has said it will start with Delhi before expanding the service to other select cities.
Minister of state for communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar told Parliament that BSNL has deployed almost 84,000 4G base station sites (out of a planned 100,000) across the country as of March 8, of which just over 74,500 are live.
Sekhar added that all of BSNL’s 4G network will provide the foundation for its nonstandalone 5G launch, as all base stations are 5G-upgradable, the report said.
BSNL has launched 4G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai as of the end of 2024, as well as most state capitals. The telco aims to offer 4G in all circles by June 2025.
Government officials told ETTelecom that funding won’t be a problem for BSNL’s 5G rollout, as the government has provided enough funding to cover the telco’s capex in the near term via a INR60 billion funding package issued in February. The government will provide more funding once 5G deployments are underway, the report said.
BSNL also plans to launch standalone 5G in Delhi across 1,876 sites using the 900-MHz and 3300-MHz bands. That project has run into problems – partly because BSNL is required to use only indigenous gear to build the network, and partly because vendors are unhappy with the telco’s revenue share model, under which BSNL would get at least 70% share of revenue, with select vendors getting whatever is left.
