Six telecom vendors bid for BSNL's $9-billion GSM lines contract

11 September 2008

Mumbai: Six telecom vendors, including Nokia and Ericsson, have bid for the $9-billion tender by state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to procure 93 million GSM lines. BSNL plans to extend GSM coverage to all the villages having a population of more than 1,000 persons by 2009.

"Six telecom vendors Nokia-Siemens Network, Ericsson, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel and ZTE have bid for BSNL's 93 million GSM lines contract," chairman Kuldeep Goyal said.

BSNL is upgrading its mobile network to 3G level and will soon place orders for equipment. It aims to commission the upgraded lines  by July 2009.

BSNL will introduce value-added services like mobile TV, mobile broadband, MMS, location based services etc to the villages under the expansion programme, communications and information technology minister A Raja told members of the consultative committee of parliament attached to his ministry.

The expansion will help BSNL launch value-added services like mobile banking, mobile advertisement, tele-education and lost mobile tracking system during the current year, the minister said, adding, BSNL will tap the franchisee route to offer wireless broadband services through Wi-Max.

BSNL, he said, will provide high-speed data service (up to 2.4 Mbps) on CDMA WLL network. It will also launch its pre-paid services on WLL from this month, he added.