Telecom firms reach out to BBNL for extra fibre to reduce capex spending

Telecom majors Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio have approached Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL) for extra optical fibre in order to reduce their capital expenditure.

These telecom service providers had expressed their interest in utilizing BharatNet connectivity mainly for extending their 4G/ LTE mobile services.

The firms have also deposited an advance of Rs 17.86 crore approximately in November 2017 for utilisation of BharatNet services.

Bharti Airtel provided a list of 3096 gram panchayats, feasibility of 2292 GPs was provided to them. Service provisioning has been done at 123 GPs (01 Gbps at each GP) in various states.