A circular by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that the government-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has taken over Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL)’s network in Mumbai and Delhi from January 2021.
According to the reports, BSNL’s proposal to manage networks in twin circles on an outsourced basis was accepted by the telecom department in October 2020.
“BSNL will run the mobile network of MTNL as its outsourced agency from January 1, 2020,” the DoT in a letter dated December 31, 2020, to BSNL chairman Pravin Kumar Purwar said.
As BSNL’s network signals have already emerged in Mumbai circles, it likely to make 4G services debut from the two metro cities under Purwar.
BSNL had last year bagged a fresh Unified License from DoT allowing it to operate in Mumbai and Delhi. It has also been granted a fresh Unified License (UL) with 20 years validity which is effective from February 29, 2020, across all 22 circles including Mumbai and Delhi circles.
After the grant of the new UL, all of BSNL’s spectrum in these two bands has become liberalised and can be used to offer 3G or 4G services as per the operator’s discretion. Until now the telco held non-liberalised spectrum in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands which it could only use for providing 2G services.
Meanwhile, making the telco eligible to offer mobile and fixed-line services in two metropolitans, the department has granted a unified license that included Delhi and Mumbai telecom service areas.
Delhi service areas included National Capital Region (NCR) such as Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad while the Mumbai service area would cover New Mumbai and Kalyan.
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