The State-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNl) plans to launch high-speed fourth-generation (4G) services across six telecom circles, of the 20 circles mostly before the Airtel and Reliance Jio launch the same in the State by April and June. “We got the approval for the project and the tendering process for equipment has begun with few areas already reaching their final stage.
The service might soon be available even before other network companies launches the 4G services in the State, at a minimal charge. The charges will definitely be cheaper than the rates offered by other telecom companies,” said Sujit Kumar, General Manager (consumer mobility) for BSNl Jharkhand circle. The telecom company is also set to introduce wi-fi in 18 commercial and public zones in the three leading cities of the State—Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad.
Kumar said that the Wi-fi speed would be 54 mbps, which could be increased as per the demand. “The charges have not been fixed yet but it will be cheaper than the 3G rates of different mobile network companies,” added Kumar.
“We have been able to sell 17.61 lakh SIM cards across India and 28,000 SIM cards in Jharkhand alone in December 2015. This is the highest ever SIM sale in a single month for the company that in itself talks about the better performances. The effects are visible from the fact that there has been more number of port-ins than port-outs from December onwards,” said KK Thakur, Chief General Manager (CGM), BSNl Jharkhand Circle.
“We are set to sell 50,000 SIM cards in January now. The Jharkhand circle has commissioned over 400 Base Tranceiver Station (BTS) in the remotest areas of the State during the current year. We have targeted to install another 400 BTSs by the end of this fiscal year under the objective of reaching out to the remotest (ROR),” added Thakur.