RCom, Alcatel to enter into Rs 3,000cr deal

MUMBAI, INDIA: In what could be one of the largest outsourcing deals in the Indian telecom space, Reliance Communications is close to awarding a $500-600 million (Rs 2,500-3,000 crore) operations and maintenance contract to Foprench telecom infrastructure provider Alactel-Lucent, says a report in Business Standard.

The contract would be either executed independently by Alcatel-Lucent or by the joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent and RCom formed in May 2008 for managed network services that would take on outsourcing contracts from global telecom operators.

On the GSM front, RCom will initially outsource the operations of five circles -- Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Chhattisgarh -- to Alcatel-Lucent.

The outsourcing deal also includes managing and strengthening RCom's 175,000 km global optical fibre cable systems. The OFC system, of which 80,000 km is in India, is also used to carry international telecom data.