The 4G trials of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) are expected to be further extended till January 15, 2022, as the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) led consortium is yet to demonstrate services with 40-watt radio equipment in accordance with the conditions specified in the expression of interest (EoI).
According to industry sources, TCS has communicated to BSNL that it will set up 40-watt radios at select sites by December 20, 2021 and start trials on them by December 23, 2021. Trials on 20-watt radios are ongoing.
Earlier, BSNL had extended the trials by two months, till December 31, 2021. BSNL has been mandated by the government to utilise domestic core or Indian core in its network for expanding 4G services. Accordingly, BSNL floated a tender for procurement of 50,000 sites with local core and letter of intent was issued to five vendors, including TCS, Tech Mahindra, HFCL, L&T and ITI.
BSNL expects 4G rollout within a period of 10 months on successful completion of trials. The trials were originally expected to be completed by October 31, 2021.
The TCS-led consortium is the only candidate currently doing trials at Chandigarh. TCS has partnered with C-DoT for core network and Tejas and Altiostar for radio equipment. Other successful bidders, Tech Mahindra, HFCL and L&T, are presently not conducting trials due to some issues with their core network partner.
