Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will do a investment of about Rs4,300 crore to extend network in 2018-19, and another Rs5,000-6,000 crore is probably going to be used for Government telecom projects, as indicated by a top official.
The investment of Rs4,300 crore reserved for BSNL's own expansion will primarily go into strengthening the mobile network, redesigning broadband infrastructure and strengthening the core network, its chairman and MD Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.
"Rs5,000 to 6,000 crore will be spent on the government projects like Bharat Net, Network for Spectrum, the Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for North East, and additionally boosting connectivity to Andaman with optical fiber system, and others," he said.
Other government projectss that BSNL is executing includes providing bandwidth to Lakshadweep Islands, and connecting remote territories of Arunachal Pradesh, he said. "Government is investing into large connectivity projects, where private players are not going. BSNL is being utilized as one of the vehicles to execute those projects and we do that work in the behalf of government," he said.
Shrivastava said that the telecom company will hope to install 12,000 mobile towers for 3G services and 10,000 for 4G services. This will have an provision for 100% development mapped to BSNL's 4G services roll out and spectrum allotment.
According to the most recent report by telecom regulator, BSNL had 9.40% share of mobile services market as on 31 January and had included 3.96 lakh customers during that month.
