Although DoT authorities had originally planned to introduce 5G by the end of the year, the plan has since been postponed until next year.
At the start of the 4G rollout, the state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) had 800,000 4G subscribers spread throughout the northern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and western Uttar Pradesh. According to a senior Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official, this comes after the installation of an in-house network created in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services and the government’s Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT).
A more realistic roadmap for BSNL’s 4G rollout and the ensuing 5G launch was presented by the official. “By August, the eastern, western, and southern regions should have the network’s core installed. The launch of 5G services within the next 12 months will follow the statewide deployment, which is planned to align with festival season, according to the unnamed DoT official.
BSNL has deployed more than 3,500 4G towers, and if it reaches 20,000 towers, it plans to undertake a full-scale commercial rollout throughout India. In addition to its intentions to build 100,000 towers around the country, the corporation hopes to acquire 100 million 4G users within the next 12 to 24 months, according to Information Technology and Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s statement from last May.
However, due to difficulties and some teething issues with the first network to be developed domestically, the rollout has been delayed. The introduction of 5G, which DoT officials had originally planned to happen by year’s end, has now been postponed until the end of the next year.
In contrast, Reliance Jio, BSNL’s peer in the private sector, has almost finished expanding its 5G network in less than a year.
Less than 1% of the 86.9 million subscribers of BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), another state-owned telecom firm with operations in New Delhi and Mumbai, were using 4G services as of February 2024, representing a 7.95% market share. Compared to a former subscriber base of 90–100 million, this number shows a drop. With 94.1 million members, the business had a 9.36% market share in February of the previous year.
The BSNL Employees Union has pushed the government to allow the use of Vodafone-Idea’s 4G network, in which the government is a major stakeholder, in order to deliver quick service improvements, amid worries about the declining subscriber base.
