Finally! BSNL Will Start 4G Trials In These 4 Districts From August; 800 4G Towers To Be Used

At a time when private telecom operators like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are gearing up for launching 5G services pan-India, state-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is all set to start its trial runs for launching 4G services across the country, which is expected to complete by the end of Dec 2022.

According to latest development on BSNL’s upcoming 4G launch, the telco will commence its trial run for the network in four districts of Kerala by August 2022, before launching the network across the state by Dec.

BSNL To Begin Trial Runs in Kerala’s These 4 Cities

Starting August 2022, the state-owned telecom company BSNL will initiate its 4G trial run in four cities of Kerala: Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Kannur.

As per Chief General Manager of Kerala Circle, BSNL,C.V. Vinod, “A total of 800 towers have been approved for Kerala for the trial launch, with Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam having a larger number of those towers. The trial run is concentrated mostly in urban areas with maximum mobile traffic, for real-time testing of how the system holds up. Once the demonstration is successfully completed, the rollout across the State will begin by December”.

According to a The Hindu report, the much-delayed 4G launch of the public sector telecom major is being conducted in collaboration with the IT giant Tata Consultancy Services, after an earlier tender of the telco was rejected following the Union government objecting to the involvement of Chinese suppliers.

Two years back, the telco’s tender for update of 4G was scrapped after the Government’s Department of Telecom (DoT) did not agree to the company’s use of Chinese telecom gear, stating that it was in contradiction to the country’s ‘Make in India’ norms, and was not favorable to Indian companies.

This pushed back BSNL’s 4G roll-out to a large extent.