iTWire - Three Euro telcos in running for world’s biggest GSM tender

Three Euro telcos in running for world’s biggest GSM tender

by Sufia Tippu
Monday, 09 October 2006
Page 1 of 2 The world’s biggest ever GSM network tender, worth about $4 billion from Indian carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), is now underway, with three European vendors fighting for a piece of the action. Register now to win a Canon EOS 500D Announced early this year, the mega tender for 60 million new GSM/UMTS lines has seen the field narrowed down to just three contenders for a spot as one of the two suppliers. Chinese major ZTE and US telecom giant Motorola have been disqualified from the mega tender and the final bids have been narrowed down to European vendors Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens. Motorola and ZTE were eliminated as they failed to meet the “stringent technical criteria stipulated by the tender”. Sources said the eliminations could be on security grounds, since ZTE is based in China, and Motorola sources a huge chunk of equipment from Huawei, another Chinese vendor. BSNL had originally planned to issue the contract in two parts -- one for 40 million lines, and another for 20 million in 2007, but later decided to award the whole lot in one go. It also plans to set aside 25 to 30 percent of the lines for 3G. The mega size of the deal had a number of telecom infrastructure vendors positioning themselves to grab a piece of action. Alcatel opened a second GSM base station production facility with its local partner, ITI Ltd., Ericsson AB upgraded its base station facilities, while Nokia also set up a manufacturing plant and was recently awarded another GSM expansion deal from BSNL. << First page < 1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>