4G network: ‘Don’t force BSNL to go local’

Former top officials of the department of telecommunications (DoT) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) have expressed concerns over the government’s stance that the core 4G network of BSNL should be built by domestic vendors and not global firms like Ericsson or Nokia. So far domestic vendors have not commissioned the core network of any telecom operator in the country. Such an experiment in the case of BSNL when it’s venturing into 4G services almost three-four years late compared with its private-sector peers, will not only escalate costs for the company but also competitively put it at a huge disadvantage.