Central government owned BSNL to sell 10,000 towers as part of monetisation plans: Details here

Central government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is reportedly planning to sell 10,000 telecom towers to meet targets laid out by the Centre as part of its national monetisation pipeline (NMP). There is a possibility of getting a revenue of Rs.4 thousand crores. KPMG has been appointed as the consultant for the telecom sale.

BSNL currently has 68 thousand telecom towers across the country. The towers will be sold with telecom co-location arrangement with third party companies like Reliance Jio, Airtel. Under the National Monetization Scheme, 13,567 mobile towers owned by BSNL will be sold by FY 2025. So, 1350 telecom towers owned by MTNL, which provides telecom services in Mumbai and Delhi, will be sold. 14,917 telecom towers of these two companies will be sold in a phased manner.

While the BSNL is in loss, the central government is going to continue the telephone service of BSNL and there is a possibility of merger with Bharat Broadbrand Network Company. A merger of these two companies will provide more efficient telephone and internet services to rural, remote areas.

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said that the state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will start deploying 5G connectivity in India starting 2023. The Minister told ET Telecom that The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) was making progress in developing non-standalone (NSA) core network, which will be ready in August this year following which its testing will begin that is expected to concluded in December this year. “By next year, Indian 5G stack will be ready to deploy including in BSNL,” the minister told the publication adding that equipment for nearly one lakh sites could be ready at the time deployment.

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. NSA technology uses existing networking infrastructure for deploying 5G connectivity, while standalone (SA) uses latest network infrastructure for the purpose. While SA provides a faster and more reliable connection, NSA is easy to deploy and costs significantly less.

The post Central government owned BSNL to sell 10,000 towers as part of monetisation plans: Details here appeared first on BGR India.