NEW DELHI: Homegrown telecom companies led by Voice Of Indian Communication technology Enterprises (Voice) have asked state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to adopt new mobile tower technologies to drive cost and time efficiencies.
In a letter to BSNL chairman, PK Purwar, dated August 30, 2022 Voice director general Rakesh Kumar Bhatnagar said, "Since, an indigenous new tower technology solution is available, BSNL could take advantage of new design options that have undergone rigorous testing."
Delhi-based Voice represents local telecom companies such as Tejas Networks, Vihaan Networks, HFCL, STL and Coral Telecom as well as startups including Chipspirit Technologies, Galore Networks, Kenstel, Lekha Wireless, Niral Networks, Signalchip Innovations and Resonous Technologies.
Voice executive also said that the Telecommunications Engineering Centre (TEC) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) should initiate an urgent action to ensure that standards for towers should not remain outdated.
Bhatnagar in his letter added that BSNL in its procurement plan specified tower standards as per TEC's general requirements dating back to 2004 while on the other hand, private sector rivals are taking advantage of newer tower designs, resulting in huge savings in capex (capital expenditure) and commissioning timelines also.
Recently, BSNL has floated a tender for supply and installation of 17,264 ground-based towers (GBT) under the Infrastructure as a Service Provider (IaaSP) category.
One of the members, Kotkar Energy Dynamics, according to Voice, has developed a new generation telecom tower, called Advait-Tower which offers a drastic cost and installation time reduction advantage over the older generation of GBT.
In July this year, the Union Cabinet approved a program for saturation of fourth generation (4G) mobile services across 24,680 uncovered villages of the country in addition to 6,279 villages that have 2G connectivity.
The initiative would be executed by BSNL using Atmanirbhar Bharat’s 4G technology stack at a cost of Rs. 26,316-crore, funded by Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
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