Tejas Networks seeks potential business opportunities beyond BSNL deal: COO, ET Telecom

NEW DELHI: Tejas Networks is searching for potential business opportunities with more telecom operators, beyond the multi-crore deal that it has with state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a top executive of the homegrown telecom gear maker said.

“…we also engaged with several other customers for our RAN products, and as of now, we have multiple ongoing proof of concepts (PoC) with potential customers. So, we have started making business development progress beyond the immediate BSNL opportunity,” Arnob Roy, Chief Operating Officer and Whole-Time Director, Tejas Networks, said at the company’s Q4FY24 post-earnings call.

He noted that Tejas Networks is engaged in a few opportunities with telcos and with companies in the critical infrastructure sector. “We are into multiple POCs where our radios are deployed and undergoing trials…even beyond this, there are multiple opportunities, and we have started engaging with other customers and they are all in India, and we hope to line up some opportunities internationally as well.”

During the fiscal fourth quarter, Roy added that Tejas Networks made significant progress in both wireless and wireline businesses.

“For wireless, we shipped a lot of equipment for the 4G/5G RAN in the BSNL network. We have shipped cumulatively more than 10,000 sites, and the installations are progressing quite well,” he said. The remaining 90,000 sites are expected to be deployed in the next three to four quarters, as per the top executive.

Another milestone in Q4 FY2024, according to the COO, was completing the supply of “large quantities” of IP/MPLS routers for BSNL’s MAAN network, which is the backhaul network for the 4G/5G mobile network.

“This is one of the largest deployments of indigenous IP/MPLS routers in India,” the executive said, adding that nearly 15,000 routers are deployed in the telco’s network and the installation, commissioning, as well as, deployment is in progress.

Tejas had won a Rs 696 crore pan-India deal from BSNL in April last year, under which, it had to supply, install, and commission over 13,000 TJ1400 access and aggregation routers to upgrade BSNL’s IP-MPLS-driven MAAN network within 18 months.

Tejas expects to conclude the supplies of equipment for BSNL’s 4G/5G network in the fiscal year 2025, “with most part of the network” to be deployed and commissioned during this time, Roy said.

He added that RAN (radio access network) equipment is currently getting deployed for BSNL across the country in different zones.

“But what has happened is the core has been deployed in a few of the zones, not in all of them. So, wherever our RAN is getting deployed and installed, at that time, whenever the CDOT core is not there, the equipment is getting integrated into the existing core. So, when the CDOT core gets deployed in those circles, in those zones, they will get parented to the CDOT core as well,” the Tejas Networks executive said.

ETTelecom reported in April that BSNL has sought the intervention of China’s ZTE and Finland’s ZTE to integrate the legacy 2G and 3G networks into the fourth-generation (4G) network, which has been domestically developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT).

In 2023, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) bagged a Rs 15,000 crore deal from BSNL under Phase IX.2 program and is deploying RAN equipment through its subsidiary Tejas Networks.

Under the phase IX.2 expansion, TCS has commercially deployed 4,667 sites in northern and western zones encompassing 12 states, while only site surveys were undertaken in telco’s eastern and southern zones as of March 2024, according to BSNL’s installation and commissioning (I&C) report.