BSNL’S 4G LAUNCH MAY TAKE PLACE AT LAST LATEST BY MARCH NEXT YEAR

For unlisted BSNL, the beleaguered PSU under the administrative control of DoT, the only silver lining is that sections of users in towns and mid-size cities are porting to it from other telecom service providers under TRAI’s Mobile Number Portability (MNP) scheme as its 4G facility project gets launched piecemeal.

Several dates for a pan-India launch of BSNL’s 4G have been reportedly mentioned at internal meetings by the top brass at DoT and the company’s in New Delhi over the past 18 months or so but those proved to be pious intentions. According to indications available from official sources and information available with trade unions, DoT is keen to launch BSNL’s 4G latest by December end. If once again the target is missed, DoT is firm on a March next schedule. BSNL HQs has been given the message.

This has an implication in the sense that BSNL has to be extra vigilant about the pace of implementation by the principal vendor, TCS, the IT giant of the Tata Group, which is taking care of the software side. Tejas Networks, controlled by TCS, is responsible for the hardware – in this case for supply of latest 4G / 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) spanning one lakh sites. DoT-administered ITI too is involved in a fairly big way, with
its responsibilities including engineering, annual maintenance and supply of 20 per cent plus of total requirement of RAN (for the west zone). DoT-arm C-DoT is in charge of Circuit-Switched (CS) CORE, which takes care of certain legacy systems and all specialised applications.

The most pertinent question at the moment is whether the pan-India 4G launch over the next seven months – taking into account both December-end and March next schedules – porting to BSNL from other three service providers – RelJio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VI) – will gain sufficient momentum to place BSNL in a
comfort zone financially. There are certain positives that may help this government company. First and
foremost will be its tariff strategy which is as usual expected to be “rational, affordable and user inducing”
even as it will aim to access the farthest rural areas in keeping with the Centre’s objective of widest possible coverage. A key element will be the base tariff fixation. This rate is of particular relevance to low-income users. For profit, it can bank upon internet and other technology-intensive services. Which means it can afford to be generous in fixing the base user price via-a-vis other service providers.

The last tariff raise by RelJio, Airtel and VI with effect from July 3-4 by 10 to 25 per cent plus did evoke user reaction and BSNL has gone on record that since then and by now over 2.5 lakh users have migrated to BSNL’s 4G. At the end of 2023 as piecemeal launch gained traction after work had started in an orderly manner by the project implementers since the end of 2021, some eight lakh subscribers had crossed over to it.

If porting under MNP and new subscriber additions are considered together, this PSU is estimated to have gained nearly 25 lakh users in places in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and parts of South India, according to Perumal Abhimanyu, general-secretary of BSNL Employees Union, affiliated to CITU. “Something good is
happening at last”, Abhimanyu told IPA. The pick-up in work on the targeted setting up of one lakh Base Transciever Stations (BTS) is yielding results finally, general secretary of Bharatiya Telecom Employees Union R C Pandey, affiliated to BMS, told IPA.

In this context, an interesting point made to this correspondent by Utpal Ghosh Dastidar, who has been associated with the BMS TU arm for a long time here, is that tourists invariably prefer to have a BSNL SIM (subscriber identity module), even if as a second access facilitator because of the availability of BSNL towers even in remote places. Tourism is a growing segment of the economy and BSNL can look forward to
gaining a part of the increase in communication traffic, Ghosh Dastidar added.

But, there is consensus in telecom circles that some tailwinds notwithstanding, it is going to be long haul for the lone PSU service provider because the fall has been so steep in the last 8-10 years that even a third position among the telcos in the next three-four years looks difficult at this point in time. At present, in market share BSNL is a poor fourth after RelJio, Airtel and VI. Union sources concede it will be an achievement if it can garner a market share of 15 per cent from the current eight per cent over a three-four year timeframe.

This will call simultaneous drive to win back old landline customers and attract fresh subscribers in that segment, particularly from the corporate sector. Competitive tariff fixation may aid its efforts in this direction. Renewed drive for wireline segment assumes importance because on continuous desertions from BSNL to other private sector telcos have heavily eroded its landline subscriber base. Weak financial position has been preventing it from refunding the deposit it had taken from people who had applied for landline
connection and have opted out of the service in the past several years.

After much dithering the then communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad got cabinet approval for a revival package on October 23, 2019, by when private players were on a strong footing. So, in a matter of eight weeks, the revival plan will be five year-old and is still under execution. Selection of the principal vendor, vendor’s proof of concept to the satisfaction of the authorities and mobilisation by the vendor are the key reasons for the unusual delay. However, a definite positive of the package under execution is that
upgradation to 5G, which will inter alia involve card replacement and software update, will be possible
in six-eight months.

Independent India’s most sweeping VRS saw the exit in one stroke of over 92,000 employees – 78,000 from BSNL and the balance from erstwhile MTNL (then listed) after the office hours on January 31, 2020. That the Centre had acted tough was also borne out by the fact that simultaneously the posts were abolished, ruling out any recruitment in place of VRS-optees.