Part of BSNL 4G contract may be reserved for domestic companies

It's the govt's way of testing the waters to see if Indian firms can make telecom gear

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is looking at the option of splitting the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) contract for installing 4G equipment across the country.

It has suggested that BSNL should proceed with the existing expression of interest which was floated in January and is reserved exclusively for domestic vendors in consonance with India’s focus on ‘Atmanirbhar’ Bharat to install 50,000 radio access networks.

But the DoT says that BSNL should also plan, in parallel, to float another tender for the rest of the RAN (50,000) as per its usual tender rules which will be open to global telecom gear players