MTNL to start cellular operations in June

CIOL Bureau

BANGALORE: The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) has offered a letter of intent (LOI) to ITI Ltd. for design, supply and installation of GSM-based equipment for its cellular mobile services in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai.

The total project cost is Rs 1,000 crore, while the order over a three-year period would amount to Rs 500 crore and the value of the initial order will be Rs 82 crore, MTNL chairman S. Rajagopalan said. The first connection of MTNL's mobile phone should be available by June this year, he added.

In the first year, MTNL intends to provide 100,000 connections each in Delhi and Mumbai. There will be an expansion of four lakhs lines in each city in the subsequent two years from June 2000 onward. Mr. Rajagopalan said MTNL would target a larger consumer base in cellular mobile service through competitive pricing and better quality of services.

ITI has an association with Lucent and will provide value-added Lucent technology to MTNL. Fresh technical bids for GSM equipment were invited in December last year. Among the other bidders were Alcatel, Motorola, Ericsson and Nortel. MTNL has also offered the LOI to Motorola for providing CDMA-WLL equipment for 50K lines in Delhi. The LOI for Mumbai has been given to Fujitsu, but is subject to court clearances. Motorola will supply the equipment within three-four months, while the project will be commissioned within six months.