Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has issued advance purchase orders worth ₹15,700 crore to Tata Consultancy Services and ITI Ltd for 100,000 4G sites. The announcement ends months of speculation around the deal, where TCS was tipped to be the front runner for the contract. The deal has been in the works for many months.
A fifth of these 4G sites will be deployed by state-run ITI. ITI has a reservation of 20% in BSNL's next generation network deployment.
BSNL will also issue circle-wise purchase orders to procure the equipment. The APOs were issued on May 19.
BSNL provides fixed line and wireless telephony, and data services across the country barring Mumbai and New Delhi. The private rivals of BSNL already provide 4G services and have also launched 5G offerings in several select pockets of the country.
TCS is the country's largest software exporter and typically books over 5 per cent of its revenue domestically. The deal for TCS comes at a time when its major markets such as US and Europe are slowing down. The TCS consortium includes Tata Group's telecom gear making company Tejas Networks, which will be responsible for supplying and servicing the Radio Access Networks (RAN) equipment.
While the deal is revenue boosting for TCS, it could also be margin dilutive with other players being involved.
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