Lucent to transfer its stake in Tata Telecom

NEW DELHI: Lucent Technologies in India will be transferring its 25 per cent stake in Tata Telecom into a separate company. Tata Telecom, which is a JV between Lucent Technologies and the Tatas, has been providing complete business solutions for enterprises. The communications arm of Lucent Technologies called Enterprises Communication Equipment and the Tatas have a 25.5 percent each in the JV while the rest 49 per cent is held by various financial institutions.

According to Lucent Technologies, India CEO Vijay Kumar Gupta, "The main idea for the spin-off is to have a separate company concentrating on enterprise equipment." The proposed spin-off is part of the global restructuring that the company is undertaking to hive off its enterprises communications systems, business cabling and data networking business into a separate company. The new company, which will be owned by shareholders, will have an investment of $8 billion and would be focussed on delivering next generation communication technologies.

Recently, Lucent had bought out the 50 per cent stake of Tatas in Tata Lucent, a venture formed in April 1997 to manufacture infrastructure equipment. Lucent Technologies, which has provided over one million telephone lines in India through DoT, has a manufacturing facility in Bangalore for switches and power systems. Early this year Lucent had tied up with ITI Ltd to build the GSM network of MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai.

Also, Lucent was recently selected by Escotel, the cellular operator in UP (West), Haryana and Kerala, for expanding and upgrading its GSM network in all the three circles. Under the contract, Lucent will upgrade the Mobile Switching Centre and Base station Controllers to make the network General Packet Radio Service ready and enhance the capacity of the network to cater to over 7,00,000 customers spread over more than 170 towns by the year 2003. Lucent will also provide a solution for providing cost-effective coverage in the semi-urban and rural areas, which are not very heavily populated through its latest generation, high-powered "Flexent" range of BTS’s.