The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) panel has recommended allowing only Indian companies to provide core network products and services for the upcoming Bharat Sanchat Nigam Limited (BSNL) 4G tender.
The panel said that Indian vendorswould require to pass through proof of concept (PoC)for provenness of the product and not more than two system integrators can offer PoC for Indian core, ifthat fails, BSNL will be not able to procure core. PoC shall be completed in four months.
Besides, the committee has also recommended all participating vendors to submit their equipment and solutions source code. The source code should be deposited in an escrow account and should be compiled with non-proprietary compilers by the supplier and installed in the field.
Further, the committee added that the radio access network (RAN) specifications should be open for all for which all Indian companies can bid. It added that the tender should be exclusively 4G tender without any requirements for 2G/3G equipment. Moreover, it suggested to allow system integrators (SIs) to participate as lead bidders with technology consortium partners supplying the core and RAN equipment to BSNL.The committee noted that no Indian vendor can provide multi-technology (2G+4G) RAN.
Further, it added that BSNL may upgrade or augment its existing 2G/3G RAN deployed in phase 8.4 tender through L-1 bidder.
