Motorola gets Rs 163 cr deal from BSNL

CHENNAI: Motorola has announced that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has awarded it an expansion contract for its Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications network in South India. Under terms of the $33 million (Rs 163 crore) contract, Motorola would install a GSM network for BSNL in Chennai and expand its existing network of Andhra Pradesh in nine cities, including Hyderabad.

The network expansion and deployment, scheduled to be completed by April 2003, would provide BSNL with additional subscriber capacity of 313,000. The cities to be covered are Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Kakinada, Amalapuram, Tirupathi, Warangal and Rajamundry.

"We believe that the expansion order is a reflection of the satisfaction that BSNL has with the pace and the quality of network that Motorola has set up. The order also makes Motorola the only GSM equipment provider to have set up networks in all the four metros," said Pramod Saxena, country head & executive director, continental India, Motorola.

The current expansion contract is in addition to the initial $170 million contract awarded by BSNL for deployment of GSM cellular network in South India and announced in early 2002. Under that initial contract, Motorola deployed the GSM cellular network for a region in the four States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.