India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. is set to sign a three-year, $1.5 billion network outsourcing deal with Sweden’s Ericsson . Ericsson will be entrusted with design, planning, supply, installation, commissioning and upgrading of Bharti Airtel network in 15 telecom circles.
A spokesman for Bharti, India’s top mobile services firm, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Last week, Bharti said it was in talks with telecom equipment maker Ericsson for a network expansion deal after it signed a similar contract worth $900 million with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) .
In August last year, Ericsson had won an estimated $1 billion contract to expand and upgrade Bharti’s telecom network and to supply services.
India’s telecom services firms such as Bharti and Reliance Communications are rapidly rolling out networks across the country to tap the vast rural population as growth in urban areas starts to plateau.
Indian cellular providers added more than 5 million GSM customers in May, taking the user base to 130.6 million in the world’s fastest-growing cellular market.
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Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has signed a GSM network expansion contract with China Mobile Group Yunnan (YNMCC) worth about EUR70 million. Within the scope of the agreement, NSN will provide GSM coverage for the urban and rural areas of Yunnan province and upgrade the Chinese operator’s network to support EDGE. The deliveries have already begun and the expansion will be operational by October.
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Nokia Siemens Networks today announced its plans to invest USD 100 million in India over the next three years as a part of its commitment to develop a strong telecommunications environment in India. This is to better address and drive the growth of Indian mobile industry and to better serve its customers. This investment will include setting up a proposed telecommunication equipment manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu for wireless network equipment, new offices across various cities, additional development of an existing R&D centre, and expanding the Global Networks Solution Centre.
The investment plans were announced by Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO, Nokia Siemens Networks on the first day of his three day visit to India. This is his first visit to the country as head of the newly formed company. Said Beresford-Wylie, “The Indian telecommunications market is entering a next wave of growth; one that will see a rapid build out of mobile and broadband networks outside the major cities and delivery of a host of new services to consumers across the country. To address this growing local demand, and reduce the overall time to market of products and services to our operator customers, we are investing in strengthening our local presence and creating a strong ecosystem in India.”
The proposed facility aims to address the strong market demand in India and will manufacture high end equipment. Nokia Siemens Networks will also establish a network of suppliers with focus on increased localized sourcing. The construction work at the site will begin later this year and commercial production is expected to begin in 2008. “Nokia Siemens Networks has experienced strong business success since the launch of its operations in India,” said Ashish Chowdhary, Head of India Sub-region, Nokia Siemens Networks. “With our extensive managed services capability and end to end product portfolio, we are committed to building a strong local telecommunication ecosystem in India to address and drive the growth of the Indian mobile industry.”
In India, Nokia Siemens Networks is the largest telecommunications equipment vendor* and the leader in managed services. A leading supplier to all the major GSM operators in the country, Nokia Siemens Networks serves its customers with a best-in-class portfolio, a strong presence in the growing services market, a powerful global R&D team, and a huge global installed base. Nokia Siemens Networks’ operations in India include Sales & Marketing, Research & Development, Manufacturing and Global Networks Operations Centre. Headquartered at Gurgaon, the company has presence in over 170 locations across the country.
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Nokia Siemens Networks today announced that it has won its first contract from Maxis Group, India, which operates under brand name of Aircel, to build a greenfield GSM network in Kolkata. The Rs. 300 crore contract includes supply of GSM/EDGE equipment, implementation, project management and managed services, such as operating and maintaining the network infrastructure. Nokia Siemens Networks will deploy latest state-of–the-art equipment like Flexi base stations, mini-ultra base stations, 3GPP-based mobile softswitching solution including MSC Servers and Media Gateways PDH, SDH. The network will be supported by the multi-technology, multi-vendor NetAct network and service management system, and will be ready for commercial operations by December 2007.
Commenting on the partnership, Sandeep Das, CEO, Maxis, said: “Today’s announcement is another step in our efforts to build a strong GSM network footprint for Aircel across the world’s fastest growing mobile market. The roll-out of our network in Kolkata will further consolidate our position in East India.” He added “We chose Nokia Siemens Networks as they met our three key criteria – protecting our network investments against technology obsolescence, extensive managed service experience and speedy network deployment within our timelines.”
Added Rohit Chandra, CEO North & East, Aircel, “Our partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks will provide us with the latest GSM technologies such as the multi-radio Flexi Base Station Platform that will not only help us provide services today but will also makes our network ready for 3G and WIMAX services as and when the regulation permits.”
“This contract is special as it is our first contract with Aircel, and we’re very pleased about it,” said Mr. Ashish Chowdhary, Head India Sub-region, Nokia Siemens Networks. He added, ”We would also like to congratulate Aircel on its innovative approach to the provisioning of mobile services in a greenfield network by going for Managed Services right from the start. This will not only help them in achieving OPEX savings but also allow them to focus on their customers’ acquisition and service strategies from the first day of commercial operations.”
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The two companies have signed an agreement on the establishment of a joint SFR-Nokia Siemens Networks Competence Center in Paris. The SFR-Nokia Siemens Networks Competence Center aims to develop innovative concepts and appealing services for mobile centric applications. The main objective of this joint effort is to develop a common approach for launching advanced services.
The Competence Center combines SFR’s knowledge of the end-user and business requirements and Nokia Siemens Networks’ expertise in the development of application platforms and solutions.
“The launch of this Competence Center is the latest in a long list of achievements that underscores our good cooperation with Nokia Siemens Networks,” says Paul Corbel, Chief Technical Officer, SFR. “SFR also turned to Nokia Siemens Networks to migrate our core network to 3GPP Release 4 softswitches, as well as to help us to launch France’s first nationwide HSDPA and the first to make a WCDMA 900 test call in France. Today our 3G service is successful in France with more than 3 million subscribers, thanks to a network provided by the newly formed Nokia Siemens Networks, confirming that choosing to continue with Nokia Siemens Networks as our preferred partner in 3G is indeed the right choice.”
“We are very pleased to be working hand-in-hand with SFR to make SFR’s mobile centric strategy a reality,” says Olivier de Percin, Head of the SFR Customer Team at Nokia Siemens Networks. “The continuous flow of projects developed jointly between SFR and Nokia Siemens Networks is a great tribute to the partnership built between two companies that share the same vision of a mobile centric telecom world.”
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Telecommunications technology will in the coming years have a profound impact on many societies in Africa, contributing largely to the economic growth and wealth of millions of people on the continent.
This development, and issues related to the regulatory environment supporting the foreseen growth, will be the major themes of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation’s (CTO) European-African Telecommunications Roundtable in Helsinki and Bonn, a meeting that will bring together leading decision makers from Africa, Europe and the telecoms industry.
The CTO meeting will assemble high-level telecommunications officials from the organisation’s African member countries, with participants representing communications ministries and regulators from Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Officials from Finnish and German government and industry will also take part.
The roundtable is built around themes including the telecommunications ecosystem: the socio-economic impact of information and communication technology (ICT) and telecommunications, case studies from countries including Finland, and how similar development can be encouraged in New Growth Markets; and Europe-Africa cooperation, including European ICT initiatives in Africa and project financing.
Nokia Siemens Networks and Nokia are playing a key role in the meeting, contributing speakers and engaging in the dialogue that aims to increase understanding between the two continents, initiate concrete projects and lay the foundation for future discussions.
“While people around the world share the universal desire to connect with others, Nokia has dedicated itself to develop an unparalleled insight into the specific needs and aspirations of individuals in emerging markets. Less than a month ago, Nokia launched seven new phones based on this in-depth understanding, which are not only designed to be accessible to these consumers, but to also help spark development within the communities that they live and work,” said Veli Sundback, executive vice president of corporate relations and responsibility for Nokia.
“By 2015 we expect five billion people will be connected by wire and wirelessly from one end of the planet to the other, and the clear majority of these people will come from new growth markets in Asia and Africa. We are committed to connecting the world, and this event is an excellent opportunity to engage key stakeholders to help make this vision a reality,” said Lauri Kivinen, head of corporate affairs, Nokia Siemens Networks.
The CTO European/African Telecommunications Roundtable will run from May 28-31 in Helsinki, and then continues until June 1 in Bonn.
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Ericsson to sign $1.5 bln India Bharti deal -paper
