TCS-led consortium wins Rs 15,000 crore BSNL 4G network rollout deal

Tejas Networks, a subsidiary of Tata Group, is a part of the consortium and will supply and service the radio access network equipment

A consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has received an advance purchase order valued at over Rs 15,000 crore from BSNL for deploying a 4G network across India, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Tejas Networks, a subsidiary of Tata Group, is a part of the consortium and will supply and service the radio access network (RAN) equipment.

"Tejas Networks is a part of the TCS-led consortium that successfully bid for the BSNL pan-India 4G project. BSNL has issued an advance purchase order (APO) to TCS as well as ITI for this project. As a part of the consortium, Tejas Networks will supply and service the radio access networks (RAN) equipment," the company said in another regulatory filing.

RAN allows the disaggregation of network equipment components. It enables a telecommunications (telecom) company to source hardware and software from different vendors for network building.

TCS has also partnered with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) for the deal. BSNL will use a 4G core, developed indigenously for the first time by C-DOT.

The core will be key in establishing reliable, secure connectivity to the network for end-users and providing access to its services.

The core domain handles various essential functions in the mobile network. These include connectivity and mobility management, authentication and authorisation, subscriber data and policy management, among others.

Last week, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that over 24,600 uncovered villages, mostly in remote and far-flung areas, are expected to get BSNL 4G services by December 2023.

The department said that 2,343 mobile towers have been installed in such areas in states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal under Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-I scheme.