Concerned about the delays caused by its controversial GSM network tender last year, India's BSNL is reported to have arbitrarily placed an order for 5 million GSM lines with existing vendors, Nortel and Motorola. The contract covers the Southern regions of the country.
"We have decided to place the order with the existing vendors for immediate requirement. Meanwhile, we are coming out with a tender for the Southern zone for adding 25 million GSM lines," Kuldeep Goyal, chairman and managing director of BSNL told The Live Mint.
The contract is valued at around US$200 million and will be split equally between the two companies.
Last year, Ericsson signed a torturous deal with BSNL for just over 13 million GSM lines - worth US$1.3 billion. The deal was however mired in political arguments and was originally supposed to be worth three times as much.
A couple of weeks ago, a junior telecoms minister, Shakeel Ahmad said that BSNL will be allowed to increase its infrastructure spend by a third to reach US$4.7 billion during in the next financial year.
BSNL ended last year with just under 33 million mobile subscribers according to figures from the Mobile World database, and has been adding an average of 800,000 new subscribers per month. The company has previously said that it is aiming for 100 million subscribers by 2010.
