State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will start deploying 5G connectivity in India starting 2023, IT Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw has said.
The Minister further said that the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) was making progress in developing a non-standalone (NSA) core network, which will be ready in August this year, following which its testing will begin that is expected to conclude in December this year.
In the recently conducted 5G spectrum auction in India by the Department of Telecom (DoT), Jio emerged as the highest bidder by grabbing 24,740MHz spectrum for Rs 88,078 crore, followed by Airtel, which spent Rs 43,084 crore for 19867.8MHz of the spectrum and Vodafone Idea that acquired 3300MHz in the mid band 5G spectrum in its 17 priority circles and 26GHz in mmWave 5G spectrum in its 16 circles. All these three telecom service providers companies are expected to start deploying 5G networks in various parts of the country starting October this year.
By next year, Indian 5G stack will be ready to deploy including BSNL, the minister said. He also added that the equipment for nearly one lakh sites could be ready at the time deployment.
This is not the first report that points towards BSNL rolling out a 5G network starting 2023. Back in May this year, reports hinted towards BSNL launching 5G over the 4G core, for which the company would be leveraging 5G NSA (non-standalone) technology. A separate report also says that the state-owned telecom company will roll out its 4G services across the country in 2023, for which the company is closely working with TCS. The complete rollout is expected to take approximately 24 months.
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