It is no surprise that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is facing issues with 4G. It was expected because it is trying homegrown 4G, and this is a first for India. There were no ready vendors with proven technology, and it takes time to come out with the successful products in this line of work. According to an ET Telecom report, BSNL is not happy with TCS at the moment. Despite extending the timeline, TCS hasn’t made the desired progress with the proof of concept (PoC) of 4G products/equipment. BSNL has written a letter to TCS saying that the company hasn’t deployed the RAN (radio access network) in a single site as per the terms and conditions of the expression of interest (EoI). The state-run telco has asked TCS to expedite the process so that there are no more delays.
BSNL Says 20W Radios Not in the Terms and Conditions
BSNL said that to date, TCS has only supplied 20W radios in a few bands, which are not according to the terms and conditions of the EoI. Earlier this year, TCS, along with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) and Tejas Networks, were picked by the state-run telco for supplying core and radio equipment for the trial sites. Ashwini Vaishaw, the telecom minister of India, had also made the first call on the VoLTE trial network and called it a ‘Made-in-India’ achievement. BSNL has asked TCS not to make any excuses, and it won’t accept that a change of location for deploying a trial network is the cause for delays. TCS told ET Telecom that they are committed and are working to develop the PoC for BSNL and are also making good progress. The delays were surely going to happen. Hopefully, for BSNL, this is not a very big delay because the telco needs to roll out 4G networks as fast as possible.
