What is Bharat AirFibre?

Location: My farmhouse located somewhere deep inside the Western Ghats, Karnataka.
ISP: BSNL Bharat Airfiber.
Plan: Rs.1506 incl taxes for 100mb/s 750GB per month. 2mb/s post FUP.
Tower AP: Ubiquiti Rocket PRISM 5AC Gen2 (5GHz) with AirMax Sector antennas in PtMP mode.
Home CPE: Ubiquiti Litebeam 5AC Gen2 with D-Link Cat 6 cable. The CPE is presently tied to a jackfruit tree and does not have Line of sight with the tower.
Air Distance from BSNL tower to CPE: Around 750 meters.
Wi-Fi Router: Linksys E5600 Gigabit Wi-Fi Router on 5GHz band without any modifications (default settings).
Computer: Apple MacBook Air running on macOS Big Sur & Safari 14.

The whole thing works beautifully without any drama!. Works in heavy rain & foggy weather too. Very cost-effective and trouble-free compared to FTTH. CPE costed me Rs.7000 + Cat 6 cable Rs.20 per meter (CPE to home) + Installation & BSNL security deposits around Rs.2000 + Linksys E5600 Wi-Fi router Rs.3499 in Amazon.

So the CPE is given to customer itself ?

Cpe itself means customer premise equipment.

The whole thing is run by LCO/Franchise owned by a good friend of mine. One can get CPE of any brand from the open market if they know how to configure it and install it. Just BSNL deposits have to be paid. I paid the whole amount to LCO and got it done without any discounts.

Sai said:

Very cost-effective and trouble-free compared to FTTH. CPE costed me Rs.7000 + Cat 6 cable Rs.20 per meter (CPE to home) + Installation & BSNL security deposits around Rs.2000 + Linksys E5600 Wi-Fi router Rs.3499 in Amazon.

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How is it cost effective ? My setup costed me 3000(Router)+2500(ONU+Fiber cable).

My farmhouse located somewhere deep inside the Western Ghats, Karnataka.

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Fiber prolly isn't available or its very expensive.

igloo said:

Cpe itself means customer premise equipment.

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I meant if its on a rental basis or directly owned by customer . Anyways got it

WandereR said:

How is it cost effective ? My setup costed me 3000(Router)+2500(ONU+Fiber cable).

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I would say its super cost-effective, considering the location 😅

I think we can still reduce the cost by taking a TP-Link or Mikrotik CPE . Does the AP by the ISP and CPE have to be of the same company ?

Ubiquity has always been better in terms of performance for wireless equipments in comparison to microtik or cheap TP-Link. Moreover there are some compatibility issues too.

WandereR said:

How is it cost effective ? My setup costed me 3000(Router)+2500(ONU+Fiber cable).

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I guess you don't even know where the Western Ghats are located and how the terrain here looks!. I am attaching Google Maps image and a picture taken by me for your kind reference. Pray, tell me, how I could have reduced the setup cost in a terrain like this?.



We spent a little over four months exploring various options and made senior officials of leading Class A & B ISPs to come down for a site survey. Next, best option FTTH would have cost me an over a lakh rupees in overhead cabling costs alone. Not to forget the never-ending cable damages that would have been caused by wild animals, tree branches, etc once the setup was operational.

@shashankb - Ubiquiti Airmax is the holy grail for wireless setups like this. Mikrotik, TP-Link and countless other brands are not at all worth our time and money in terrain like ours.

@Sai How many customers are serviced from that single BSNL tower?

Also, are the new plans (799 100 Mbps, 599 60 Mbps, 999 200 Mbps etc) available for you (just curious, I would gladly pay Rs 1.5k per month or even more to get stable internet at a location like this)

I am not sure of the number of customers. Since it is the only high-speed internet option here (another option is BSNL DSL & regular 4G). They have multiple antennas pointing different directions. I guess there is enough demand.

I did not see the 799 100mb/s plans you are talking about in the portal. Will check with them.

Like should there be existing infrastructure or how is the procedure for getting it installed and stuff ...Can you write a dedicated guide in Guides section ? Will BSNL only do it rather than LCO . How to check availability ?

BSNL does not spend even a paisa for last-mile infra anymore. It is all outsourced to LCO. Let me write a simple guide for getting this:

1. A business which meets certain criteria set by BSNL like minimum turnover, prior experience in this sector can become BSNL's franchise by paying prescribed fee (some 30k) and sign an agreement with district GM of BSNL.
2. Franchise is given legislative assembly/taluka wise here. Only one business entity per legislative assembly is allowed.
3. BSNL will give the exchange building, towers, power backup free of cost to the franchise after agreement.
4. Franchise has to invest on a switch (around 15k I guess) or router (Mikrotik CCR + SFP worth around 40k). And invest for the exchange to tower cabling and tower antennas (35-40k per antenna from Ubiquiti). Depending on the number of potential customers franchise has to decide the number of antennas required. BSNL will configure the equipment and ask the franchise to start giving connections.
5. Then the franchise should do a site survey for signals and if signals of -70dBm or less can be achieved (I am getting -64dBm) staff should fix the antenna firmly, take applications from customers (same as regular FTTH) and upload the same to BSNL Franchise Management System portal. Then BSNL officials will process the application, generate username + password and share it with customers.
6. Franchise has to supply the CPE (Antenna, cables & router if required). BSNL does not supply any equipment.
7. Franchise makes money by selling CPE, installation charges and they get up to 40% share in fixed monthly charges.
8. For connections customers can approach nearby telephone exchange. They will inform LCO to give connection.
9. In our hilly terrain, my relative living 5kms away from tower (air distance) is getting a good signal. In flat terrain signal reaches 15-20kms (air distance) it seems.

If you need to know anything else, please let me know.