BSNL awards 200 m euro deal to Nokia

BANGALORE: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India's largest telecommunications company, has chosen Nokia to expand its GSM/EDGE and GPRS network in North India in a deal valued at over 200 million euro. Nokia will deploy four million lines across towns, cities, villages and all major state and national highways in the States of Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh (both east and west circles), Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

As a part of the agreement that can be extended further, Nokia will supply both core and GSM/EDGE and GPRS radio network equipment, including Base Station Subsystems, Switching Subsystems, Intelligent Network, GPRS Core Network, Short Message Service System, Multimedia Messaging center expansion and Nokia Download Solution. Nokia 5140 handsets are also included.

"This tender for a GSM turnkey cellular project is one of the largest projects, which will be installed & rolled-out just in 9 months, in the world" said SD Saxena, Director (Finance).

"Nokia is proud to collaborate with BSNL, India's leading telecommunications company, on this significant GSM network expansion exercise," said Ashish Chowdhary, Country Head, India & South Asia, Networks, Nokia. "This deployment will enable BSNL to continue offering world-class network quality and services to its end consumers."

"This deal also underscores Nokia's commitment to India, fulfilling our promise to bring high-quality equipment and advanced services to India's mobile world," added Chowdhary. "With this deal, Nokia becomes an equipment supplier to all five leading GSM operators in India."