BSNL plans to invest Rs5,000 crore on WiMAX roll-out

15 July 2008

Mumbai: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the country's largest landline network and the biggest telecom company by revenue, plans to invest around Rs5,000 crore in its WiMAX project.

BSNL will roll out wireless broadband connectivity through WiMAX technology commercially this year, mostly in urban areas, BSNL director (finance) S D Saxena said.

Initially, it will start WiMAX operations in three states - Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai), Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

The public sector telecom major also plans to set up 50,000 IT-enabled kiosks called Common Service Centers (CSC) running on WiMAX technology, across the country.

BSNL is waiting for required spectrum for rolling out the WiMAX services. Once the department of telecommunications details the 3G and WiMAX policy, both state-run operators BSNL and MTNL will get automatic spectrum allocation. Private telecom companies, however, will have to bid for the radio frequencies.

"A lot depends on the government's announcement on 3G and WiMAX and the allocation of spectrum," Saxena added.