MTNL has proposed to invite large scale bids from private players to establish a business alliance, in the deployment of WiMAX services on revenue sharing basis.
MTNL Chairman and Managing Director, Kuldip Singh has reportedly said, “The expression of interest for BWA for deploying network on a revenue sharing basis, which was to open last month (June 19) will now be open shortly.”
MTNL plans to allow only one successful bidder to hold the license in each designated area of Delhi & Mumbai and proposes to implement the IEEE 802.16e standard for WiMAX services.
In a related news, Public Sector Unit (PSU) BSNL plans to launch WiMAX services in Chandigarh within the next two months time frame. As per the latest reports, BSNL’s services are presently available in 61 tehsils out of the 74 tehsils and 80 blocks out of 143 blocks across Chandigarh. The remaining areas are proposed to be covered in the next 6 months. The current estimated subscriber base for WiMAX services is around 1,000 and BSNL aims to achieve close to 18,000 subscribers by the end of the current financial year.