BSNL to open 93 bln GSM lines bid tomorrow

New Delhi, Sep 9 (UNI) State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is set to open bids for its 93 million GSM lines tomorrow, a deal estimated to be worth 9-10 billion dollars.

The list of bidders include Nokia Siemens, Motorola, Huawei, Ericsson, ZTE and Alcatel Lucent, which will contend in what is being called the largest GSM contract globally.

BSNL has, for the first time ever, divided the tender into four components--2G lines, 3G lines, infrastructure and operating and business support systems (OSS and BSS) with a provision that companies can bid individually for any of the four components, or a single company can also bid for all the components.

The telco had earlier said it will set aside 25 per cent of the 93 million lines for 3G telephony.

BSNL plans to complete the roll out of its 3G mobile services on pan-India basis by the mid-next year.

UNI SR PY HT2005