BSNL employees seek permission from govt to use Vodafone Idea 4G network

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will be launching the 4G network by the end of 2024. As the company is planning to upgrade itself to a next level, the company’s employees have made a bizarre request to the company. BSNL employees have sent a letter to IT minister Aswini Vaishnaw and asked to allow them to use Vodafone Idea’s network, reported The Economic Times.

The letter written to the government is by BSNL employees’s union General Secretary P Abhimanyu to use Vodafone Idea’s 4G network to offer 4G for the BSNL customers. This request has been made in order to stop customers from porting to other networks and the provision to use Vi 4G network will be on temporary basis. The absence of 4G in the BSNL network has made users take this step.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, BSNL has lost 22,20,654 subscribers in August 2023 and 23,26,751 customers in September 2023. As the Indian government is the largest stakeholder in Vodafone Idea (Vi), the BSNL employees’s union requested government to do so.

However, we expect that it is highly unlikely that Vi will be offering services to BSNL customers. As Vi is a public company, the shareholders or the board might not go along with the decision.