GS AIGETOA once again took up the matter of excess delay in the rollout of the 4G services, an important aspect of the BSNL Revival Package approved by the Government of India in Oct-2019. He emphasized the need of the high speed wireless internet through 4G and its fallout on the customer base and revenue of the BSNL. He appraised that how BSNL planned the roll out of 4G services through following means:
- Procurement of 50K 4G sites (28 million lines) with associate equipment for Pan India basis through Phase IX Tender with costing of about Rs 8000 Cr.
- Up gradation of existing up-gradable 2G/3G nodes to 4G by addition of minimal incremental hardware and software, being proprietary in nature through add on order.
But due to various groups working against the interest of BSNL, 4G tender for 50K lines got canceled. As the re-tendering process will take long time, BSNL can explore its second option to rollout 4G service on pan India basis through up-gradation of the existing 2G/3G network, while tendering works may also continue. He further focused for readiness and preparedness by BSNL for the 5G service in time.