Airtel awards $400mln contract to Nokia

New Delhi, Oct 31: Leading telecommunications services provider Bharti Airtel Ltd today awarded Nokia, mobile communications leader, a 400 million dollar, three-year contract to expand its managed GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks in eight circles and deploy a pan-Indian WAP solution across its networks.

As per the contract, Nokia will provide managed services and expand Airtel networks to cover all towns and cities in the eight telecom circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa, Gujarat, Bihar (including Jharkhand), Orissa, Kolkata, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, including Chattisgarh.

The network monitoring operations will be carried out from Nokia's Global Network Services Center in Chennai.

''Nokia will provide us the latest technology and expertise to drive growth in the latent market in Eastern India and rapidly expand our coverage in Western parts of India,'' Bharti Airtel President Manoj Kohli said.

Nokia will also deploy its WAP solution across Airtel's national network to enhance the operator's mobile packet core network capabilities. The WAP gateway will enable easy usage of data services, thereby increasing the consumption of content on the Airtel network. Nokia will provide consulting services and integrate the WAP gateway into a multi-vendor environment.

The company will also deploy latest radio and core network equipment including Nokia MSC Server System (MSS) mobile softswitch, Nokia Flexi WCDMA and Ultrasite base stations, and provide services based on Bharti's capacity requirements, delivering a cost-efficient rollout of on-demand capacity.

''Nokia is proud to collaborate with Bharti on its initiative to take mobile services to millions of unconnected Indians and enhance the mobile data experience of its existing customers,'' said Nokia India Country Director (Networks) Ashish Chowdhary said.

In the past two years, Nokia has signed two contracts collectively worth 400 million with Bharti for the supply of equipment and managed services.

Nokia is a major player in the Managed Services business with close to 60 managed services contracts globally. Nokia provides managed services in 27 telecom circles in India.

Its operations in India include networks and terminals sales divisions, three Research and Development facilities, Global Networks Solutions Center and a manufacturing facility in Chennai that produces both terminals and GSM infrastructure equipment.

UNI