USOF set to provision 2542 tower locations in Left Wing Extremism (LWE-II) affected areas

The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is set to provision 2542 tower locations in MHA identified tower locations in Left Wing Extremism (LWE-II) affected areas. The provisioning of 4G based mobile services in LWE-II affected locations will take place in 7 telecom circles soon.

The scope of work includes 10 states currently carved into 7 telecom circles across the country including 84 districts with 2542 tower locations. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh (East), and West Bengal telecom circles are part of the tender released last month.

In Andhra Pradesh a total of 346 tower locations in 9 states are up for bidding whereas in Telangana 53 tower locations cutting across 12 districts are up for bidding. In Bihar, you have 16 tower locations across 7 districts whereas in Jharkhand you have 450 tower locations across 21 districts. In Madhya Pradesh, you have 23 tower locations up for bidding across 2 districts and in Chhattisgarh you have 971 tower locations up for bidding in 15 districts.

Odisha has 483 tower locations in 9 districts up for bidding, Maharashtra has 125 tower locations in 3 districts up for bidding, Uttar Pradesh (East) has 42 tower locations in 1 district, and West Bengal has 33 tower locations in 5 districts up for bidding.

The towers are to be 40 M GBT in height with 20W radiating power and minimum 1+1+1 number of TRX. The tower also requisites a sectoral antenna with radiating power of 20 Watts per TRXs and minimum 4 Km radial coverage. The minimum backhaul bandwidth needs to be VSAT of 4 Mbps and OFC/MW of 15 Mbps with voice, SMS, and data services supported.