New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 27 September, will unveil Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) ‘Swadeshi 4G stack’, a milestone that places India among a select group of nations capable of producing and manufacturing telecom equipment.
Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia announced that the “made-in-India network is cloud-based, future-ready and can upgrade seamlessly to 5G.” He added that the nationwide rollout will cover nearly 98,000 sites.
“This is a new era for the telecom sector, an era where India has entered into the domain of top countries, which produce and manufacture telecom equipment, which includes Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, China… India is now the fifth country,” Scindia said.
PM Modi will inaugurate the network in Jharsuguda, Odisha, while Scindia will be present in Guwahati for the launch, which will take place simultaneously across multiple states. BSNL’s 4G towers and base transceiver stations are already serving about 22 million customers.
“Tomorrow, PM Narendra Modi will be unveiling two very important initiatives. First, BSNL’s 4G stack, which will be rolled out tomorrow across nearly 98,000 sites nationwide. No part of India will be left untouched. Our 4G towers and BTSs are already serving 22 million customers across the length and breadth of our country. It’s fully software-driven, the network is cloud-based, and it’s future-ready. And most importantly, it will upgrade seamlessly to 5G. 4G is behind us. We are now perfecting it, and we will be moving slowly towards converting that to 5G as well,” the minister said.
Alongside the 4G launch, PM Modi will also unveil India’s “100 per cent saturation network” under the Digital Bharat Nidhi project, which has connected about 29,000-30,000 villages in a mission-mode drive, Scindia added.
