Nortel Wins Big Indian Order

Canadian wireless equipment vendor Nortel has won a lucrative new contract in India. The latest deal comes from service provider BSNL for GSM network kit and is reported to be worth over US$100 million. In a statement, the company said that BSNL has selected Nortel to support its southern GSM network expansion with a very aggressive roll-out schedule.

The Indian operator, which has over 20 million mobile customers, is expanding its network coverage and capacity to keep up with the growing demand for mobile services across India.

Richard Lowe, the president of Nortel's Carrier Networks division said "We have redesigned our GSM portfolio with this kind of opportunity in mind, making our solution much more cost competitive, without compromising the performance capacity and coverage."

Nortel has been working with BSNL in rolling out mobile services to some seven million customers in the southern and eastern parts of India since 2004.
Nortel's deployment of the BSNL network expansion is expected to be completed towards the end of 2008, it added.