After successfully upgrading Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in Punjab to 4G, now Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has aimed at upgrading its 1.45 lakh BTS towers all over India. Four cities in Maharashtra have been selected where the all the existing BTS towers are to be upgraded to 4G with Nagpur among them. The other three cities include Pune, Nashik & Kolhapur. In Nagpur district there are 774 BTS towers which presently support 2G & 3G network. With rise in use, the capacity needed to be increased. In fact the other service providers are already giving 5G network. But BSNL feels once all the existing BTS in country are upgraded to 4G, which are targeted by June 2025 the network would be upgraded to 5G. Shifting from 4G to 5G will require only minimum time as present 4G BTS support 5G services also. “Under Atmanirbhar Bharat mission, BSNL has planned for deployment of 100K, 4G sites in BSNL network on PAN India basis.

 

The project is called as Project IX.2. In Nagpur district we have 774 BTS towers ready as far as basic infrastructure is concerned. But we are installing new equipment which are indigenous that can provide us 4G network. At present 4G equipment are already installed at 255 BTS, out of which 192 are already activated. It is targeted to upgrade entire 2G/3G networks of Nagpur District by March 2025. Thereafter entire network will be optimized & from June 2025 everybody will feel proud that they are using BSNL services,” explained Yash Panhekar, Principal General Manager of BSNL, Nagpur district. Till the installation of new equipment, customers should continue to select BSNL 3G/2G network in their mobile network setting. With 4G network installed, the backup bandwidth is also being significantly increased for providing better services to customers.

 

Three organisations are working together in this initiative of Make in India. They include Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT) for technology upgradation and design, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for project implementation and for bandwidth upgradation Tejas Network are involved. BSNL is planning 5G services after rollout of 4G services. 

 

 

BSNL is also installing new 4G BTS in villages where presently MO mobile coverage of any Telecom Operators is available. This Universal Service Obligation Funded (USOF) project is called 4G saturation project. There are about 30,000 such villages in India, of which 127 are in Nagpur District. Central Government has asked the Collectors of respective districts to ensure 2,000 sq ft piece of land for recting towers. In Nagpur district, BSNL has received such pieces of land at 118 places of which work is underway at 78 villages. There are 6 villages situated in deep forest come under Tiger Project. To do work like erecting BTS tower in deep forest normally Forest Department does not allow. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is himself interested in bringing such remote areas under mobile coverage so he being the Chairperson of National Board of Wildlife allowed the same. Pench Reserve Forest also is included by which BSNL 4G Mobile coverage will be provided inside the reserve area.

 

 

The customers of BSNL are facing some problems regarding poor coverage. The caller doesn’t get connected to BSNL user and vice versa. Since installation of new equipment work is underway, BSNL has advised people to change the setting of the mobile network in their handsets to 2G/3G instead of 4G/5G. This will improve their quality of service.