BSNL has deployed indigenous 4G stack, made by Tata backed Tejas Networks & TCS and C-DoT. Multiple Indian startups are also part of it. It is aligned with the government's strategy of Atmanirvar Bharat (Self reliant India).
With 4G offering and tariffs kept atleast 30-40% cheaper than competitors, BSNL is moving forward - TRAI's August data shows BSNL grabbed 13.85 lakh new customers and stood second to only Jio who got 19L new customers. However BSNL has huge number of inactive subscribers, compared to private telcos - which tells that many are using BSNL as second SIM. Report by JM Financial tells us another fact - BSNL added most users from rural zones.
Telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, at the event of 4th edition of Kautilya Economic Conclave expressed his excitement that BSNL posted for an operating profit of Rs 5000 crore in the current financial year, up from Rs 2300 crore in the previous year. He also informed that BSNL would launch 5G in next 6-8 months, as the 4G stack BSNL deployed is 5G-ready.
BSNL, who is deployed TCS and Tejas made 4G stack, also collaborated with Tata Communications to offer eSIM all over India. Tata Communications' subsidiary Tata Communications Collaboration Services Private Ltd. (TCCSPL), has supplied its GSMA-accredited eSIM subscription management platform – Tata Communications MOVE to BSNL to enable its customers to get eSIM all over the country. To be noted, BSNL soft-launched eSIM services in Tamilnadu circle in August 2025. Pan India launch of BSNL eSIM came on October 1, 2025 will allow users to activate a mobile connection remotely via a QR code without a physical SIM card. All other telcos - Jio, Airtel and Vi already offer eSIM for some time.
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| BSNL 5G-FWA in Hyderabad (from Internet) |
Till October 21, 2025 BSNL has rolled out several strategic launches:
1. 4G as a service
2. Pan India eSIM roll out
3. 5G-SA pilot
4. Quantum 5G-FWA in Hyderabad
5. WiFi Calling (VoWiFi) in West and South zones
6. VoLTE (It may be launched with pilot 4G runs, but officially no update. I am getting VoLTE signals after October 10, 2025 in my area)
Discussions on BSNL 4G (LTE700 & LTE2100) v Others
▶ Speed of 4G on BSNL:
Airtel launched 4G on 10th April 2012, and Jio launched the same since 2015 - and BSNL has just entered the turf after a delay of 13 years 5 months 17 days, while both Airtel and Jio deployed 5G NR across the country. BSNL has several works to do - to offer better 4G speed (via MIMO or CA), fill the dark spots to offer seamless 4G experience, spectrum refarming from 3G use, introducing VoLTE etc.
When Airtel brought LTE-TDD over 20MHz spectrum on 2.3GHz band way back in 2012, it was limited to dongles and WiFi routers only, and Airtel told that maximum download speed would be 40Mbps only.
Now Airtel, Jio and Vi dumped 3G, and use several bands for 4G-LTE - 800/900MHz, 1800, 2100, 2300/2500MHz - with MIMO and Carrier aggregation the 4G speed has been improved a lot and it's now very stable. Not only that trio have quite good coverage with 4G, almost at par with Airtel & Vi's robust 2G coverage.
Comparing 4G speeds from Airtel, Jio and Vi: (From my old posts)
Airtel 4G Speedtest on 12/2017: https://drrdb.blogspot.com/2017/12/airtel-4g-speedtest-december-2017.html
Airtel v Jio 4G speedtest on 07/2017: https://drrdb.blogspot.com/2017/07/airtel-vs-jio-lte-speed-comparison.html
Vodafone 4G Speedtest 08/2016: https://drrdb.blogspot.com/2016/08/vodafone-3g-vs-4g-review-at-kolkata.html
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| BSNL 4G vs Vi 4G - Spectrum Bands |
BSNL 4G is slower than competitors as:
- Limited spectrum use: BSNL 4G using 10MHz of 700MHz which provides wide coverage but with this lower band BSNL can't offer great speed in dense, urban areas. To be a prominent 4G option in urban areas, they have deployed LTE2100 over just 5MHz - but with 5MHz BSNL can't satisfy urban area's need. They need to refarm their 2G/3G spectrum to offer LTE1800 & LTE2500 & add more spectrum on LTE2100.
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| Compare: Signal strengths of Vi LTE900 vs BSNL LTE700 ( via NetMonster app) |
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| Compare: Signal strengths of LTE2100 of Vi & BSNL ( via NetMonster app) |
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| Vi 4G in 2025 - as good as pre-5G |
- Advanced Technology used by Others: Competitors deployed LTE-A, carrier aggregation and MIMO.
- Fewer Towers: Since the official launch of BSNL it is being said that BSNL 4G is available over more than 1 lakh towers, but that's some marketing gimmick - actually BSNL has installed 1 lakh BTS and some towers have two BTS (for LTE700 and LTE2100) - which makes around 60,000 locations are covered with BSNL 4G. That's great but not compared to Jio or Airtel's 4G/5G coverage.
That means BSNL has to deploy atleast 3L BTS for 4G for wide coverage.
I am using BSNL SIM for last few days in Barrackpore and Chinsurah area and travelled over train and road. BSNL 4G crawled while I am on local train.
These are the SpeedTest results of BSNL 4G:
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| Results of BSNL 4G Speed on SpeedTest App - (09/10 and 10/10 results are on B.T. Road - moving on a bike from Titagarh to Barrackpore Chiriamore) |
From these tests, I would say BSNL 4G is decent as it's nascent, reaching 25-30Mbps if you are on good coverage zone. But mostly I am not getting good coverage. BSNL needs to iron out this issue urgently.
Last thing is BSNL's 5G roll out, which has been predicted by Telecom minister - I personally feel that BSNL 5G on 3500MHz using 70MHz spectrum (compared to Jio's 100MHz spectrum on the same band) will be launched pan India not before early 2027. Check out which companies and start-ups are driving BSNL's 5G dream - https://drrdb.blogspot.com/2024/08/bsnl-5g-may-come-earlier-than.html . BSNL's 5G over 700MHz will definitely hamper present 4G offerings due to limited spectrum.
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