Sikkim to get 5G services before I-Day: Vaishnaw
Vaishnaw said the Sevoke-Rangpo railway project was underway at a good pace and the development of Sikkim will get a fillip with the commissioning of the project.
Vaishnaw said the Sevoke-Rangpo railway project was underway at a good pace and the development of Sikkim will get a fillip with the commissioning of the project.
"The department may keep the committee apprise of the progress made in this regard," said the panel in its report presented to Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Full-scale 5G deployments across India, it said, would entail densification of networks, and in turn, sizable investments in backhaul infrastructure via fiberisation as only 35% of telecom towers are fiberised now.
Even worse, nearly 1,700 villages still lack mobile connectivity. Of these 1,700 villages, about 1,000 hamlets are located in Alluri Sitharama Raju district, which was carved out with tribal pockets of the erstwhile combined Visakhapatnam district.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost a whopping 3.5 million mobile users in October, further shrinking its user base to 245.62 million. By contrast, Jio and Airtel user bases swelled to 421.38 million and 365.02 million respectively, latest subscriber data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed.
Chauhan said that since inception, the total loss of BSNL is Rs 57,671 crores while that of MTNL is Rs 14,989 crores, as of March 31, 2022.
Airtel’s share grew from 31.66% to 31.80%, while Jio’s grew from 36.48% to 36.66%, latest subscriber data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed.
BSNL plans to deploy as many as 100,000 4G sites, and as a part of deal, the successful bidder would have to maintain the network for 10 years.
According to officials, the towers project would benefit 1,202 villages which are yet to be covered under mobile 4G services
State-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will execute this project using the homegrown 4G stack and will be funded through the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
Mobile broadband services on 5G offered on the C-band (3.3-3.67 Ghz) airwaves are set to offer more than 10 times faster data speeds than 4G and likely to be targeted initially at high-value customers in urban markets who can afford pricey 5G handsets in the Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 price range or more.