Captive 5G, commercial 4G & cost efficiencies to drive BSNL's future revenues: Robert Ravi
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
(
BSNL
) expects widespread availability of its commercial fourth-generation (4G) services and cost-efficiencies to drive top-line growth in the next few quarters, a top official said.
'We are undertaking several initiatives to improve cost efficiencies and reduce overheads. Additionally, our next-generation 4G services will see expanded coverage in the coming months. We are also exploring emerging business opportunities such as captive
5G
networks for enterprises and leveraging advanced technologies for automation and digital transformation," BSNL CMD Robert J Ravi told ETTelecom.
Further, Ravi said that these efforts together are expected to "significantly drive future revenues and strengthen BSNL's position" in the evolving telecom landscape.
The public sector telecom operator clocked a net profit of ₹280 crore in Q4FY25, rising sequentially from ₹262 crore in Q3FY25.
It cut down loss by 58% to ₹ 2,247-crore in FY 2025, from ₹ 5,370-crore in FY 2024.
Commercial 4G network-based data services contributed nearly 6% of the telco's overall revenue in Q4FY25.
Recently, the public sector telco, in partnership with a Mumbai-based startup
Tidal Wave
, deployed a captive 5G network for a few
Coal India
mines using the 2500 MHz spectrum band.
The top official also said that the state-owned telecom carrier is also "looking at bundling affordable data plans together with smartphone offering", and is in talks with homegrown original device makers (ODM), as a part of its strategy.
The telco is largely rolling out next generation networks on the 700 MHz frequency range with both top mobile chipset providers - MediaTek and Qualcomm - supporting the spectrum band.
READ MORE | Homegrown Tidal Wave, BSNL deploy private 5G network in Coal India, eyes public sector business
The telco is rolling out 4G services in partnership with Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services-led consortium that includes Tejas Networks and state-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT).
Tata Sons holds a majority of stake in Bengaluru-based Tejas Networks, which is providing radio access network (RAN) to the telco's ambitious 4G and 5G rollout initiative.
Last week, BSNL awarded a Rs 2, 903.22-crore follow-on order to N Ganapathy Subramaniam-headed TCS for planning, engineering, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and annual maintenance of 18,685 4G network sites.
BSNL, however, is expecting to increase its revenue by at least 10% once it deploys the next generation network nationwide.
BSNL CMD Robert J Ravi talks on telco's 5G expansion, use cases
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