State owned telco BSNL is planning to launch 4G services across 14 telecom circles where it has 20 Mhz of liberalised Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum under the 2500 Mhz band, reports Livemint. In January, the state run telco had rolled out a non-commercial soft launch of its 4G services in Chandigarh. Currently BSNL is considering either a revenue sharing or a capex model for the 4G rollout. It also plans to install new 4G Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) in the existing GSM sites, which means that the telco will not incur any expenditure in setting up new towers for 4G. BWA spectrum auction: Note that BSNL did not participate in the June 2010 BWA spectrum auction, but the government allocated BWA spectrum across 20 circles to it. Under the allocation, BSNL had to pay Rs 8,313.80 crore for BWA spectrum in 20 different circles. BWA spectrum is used for providing broadband internet access using wireless standards; it can also be used in technologies including LTE and WiMax. Recent developments from BSNL: Private operators including Vodafone, Idea and Airtel have already made their 4G presence in the country while expanding to newer circles. This comes as a wake up call to BSNL, which has already geared up to introduce a number of initiatives to keep up with the market pace. WiFi Hotspots: Today, BSNL said that it added 50 new WiFi hotspot locations in the country across 9 telecom circles. This comes under a planned introduction of public WiFi services that it announced…
