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

Sufia Tippu
Monday, 09 October 2006 14:33

IT Industry - Market

Interestingly, Nortel along with Alcatel and Nokia had won the first phase of BSNL's GSM network build-out but they lost out in this mega deal. And going by reports and its CFO’ statements, it appears to be very cautious about bidding on future contracts in India.

Peter Currie, CFO, Nortel Networks told analysts during its third-quarter conference call, "In terms of future business... our intent is to build the business profitably, perspectively. So any future business in India, or other theaters for that matter, we're looking at very carefully to ensure it generates positive returns for Nortel shareholders."

Meanwhile Nokia and Siemens have already announced that they will merge their mobile and infrastructure divisions to form a new entity called Nokia Siemens Networks and have applied for necessary approvals. The new entity is expected to be legally formed shortly.

“At the time of submitting their bids, Siemens and Nokia were two different entities. They have submitted separate bids. We have not been informed that now legally they are one entity,” said BSNL’s director planning R L Dube.

“We found that there were major deviations from the tender specifications in the case of Motorola and ZTE. Therefore, they were eliminated,” Dube said.

There are always some minor deviations from technical specifications mentioned in tender document and generally it is not possible for any company to meet all the conditions in any tender.

Tough technical criteria set by BSNL

The criteria set by BSNL were extremely stringent. The carrier had said that to take part, bidding vendors must have 20 million GSM lines already installed in existing networks, including at least one instance of a network of at least 2 million lines, and must have supplied GSM networks in at least 10 countries.

They must also have supplied two UMTS (3G) networks with a capacity of 5 million subscribers that will have been commercially operational for at least six months by April 28. And they should be profitable companies with an annual turnover of at least $1.8 billion per year.

And the final crunch -- at least 30 per cent of the equipment supplied, by value, must be manufactured in India.