ORDERS PLACED FOR CELLULAR MOBILE NETWORK

BSNL had invited a tender for planning, financing, engineering, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and annual maintenance of Package 1 and 2 for Phase-VII expansion of GSM/UMTS/LTE based cellular mobile network in North, East, and South Zones for 14.37 million lines.

For Package I, the order for 10.15 million lines had been placed on ZTE for North and South Zones and the APO had been accepted. For the balance 4.22 million lines, APO had been offered and not accepted by Huawei for East Zone. It was subsequently offered and not accepted by Alcatel Lucent too. It is expected that the APO for 4.22 million lines will be now offered to ZTE. The lowest package price was Rs. 4000 crore, as quoted by ZTE, the lowest bidder.

For Package II (IN solutions), the APOs for North and East Zone had been offered and accepted by Alcatel-Lucent, the lowest bidder. Subsequently the APO for the South Zone was offered and refused by ZTE and other bidders. It is expected that the APO for South Zone will be now offered to Alcatel-Lucent. The lowest package price was Rs. 164 crore.

APOS PLACED FOR ADSL2+ CPE EQUIPMEMT

BSNL had invited a tender for 10,00,000 nos. of ADSL2+ CPE Type W2. APOs had been placed for 7 lakh nos. on Teracom, the lowest bidder. For the balance 3 lakh nos the APO had been offered and not accepted by VMC, subsequently Beetel the L3 bidder refused too. The offer was then made to Teracom, who has accepted the APO.

ORDERS AWAITED FOR OFC - INDIAN NAVY

BSNL had invited a tender for supply of 96F OFC and its accessories on turnkey basis for defense services (Indian Navy). There are three zones. Bidders are Teracom-Neo Duct, Sterlite-TCIL, and VTL-Engineering P & Construction. VTL-Engineering P & Construction was the lowest bidder with a bid price of Rs. 545.28 crore. For financial bid details please refer the January 2012 edition of Communications Today. PNC is being done. Orders are awaited.

FINANCIAL BID OPENING AWAITED FOR SIM CARDS

MTNL, Delhi had invited a tender for 4 lakh numbers of 32K SIM cards and 3 lakh numbers of 64K SIM cards. Technical bid had been opened on August 21, 2011. Syscom and Sharon were the two bidders. Syscom's financial bid was not opened. Orders are awaited.

PART APOS PLACED FOR EPBTS

MTNL, Mumbai had invited a tender for 175,000 units of electronic push button telephones with RJ-11 female jack units for GM(MM) unit. The financial bid has been opened, and details are given. Three companies were found eligible. An APO for 50 percent of the quantity has been placed on SRV, the lowest bidder, at a unit price Rs. 206. It is expected that APOs for 30 percent quantity on Bharti and 20 percent quantity on Pramod Telecom shall be placed soon.

FINANCIAL BID OPENING AWAITED FOR EPBTS

MTNL, Delhi had invited a tender for 50,000 nos of electronic push button telephones with RJ-11 female jack units. The technical bid was opened on April 12, 2012, with Pramod Telecom and ITI as bidders. The financial bid has not yet been opened. It is expected that if the lowest bid unit price is higher than Rs. 210, the order may be routed through MTNL Mumbai, where the lowest unit price for 175,000 nos of EPBTs is Rs. 206, as quoted by SRV.

ORDERS AWAITED FOR DEFENCE NETWORK

BSNL had invited a tender for procurement, supply, trenching, laying, installation, testing, and maintenance of optical fiber cable and accessories for construction of exclusive optical NLD backbone and optical access routes on turnkey basis for defense network. This is for OFC based nationwide optical backbone for 414 defense sites and optical gigabit access networks at 219 army sites. Financial bid opening details are given. Orders are awaited from BSNL. It is anticipated that this order may be cancelled, and fresh tender is issued for the requirement.

DECISION AWAITED FOR STM-64 EQUIPMENT

BSNL had invited a tender for procurement of 1,621 numbers of STM-64 equipment. Financial bid has been opened. Bidders are VMC, Prithvi, IComm, ITI, Teracom, Alcatel-Lucent, and ZTE. VMC emerged as the lowest bidder with a bid price of Rs. 82.25 crore. For financial bid details please refer the January 2012 edition of Communications Today. Evaluation process is on. It is anticipated that this tender may be cancelled.

EOI PROPOSAL FOR CARRIER ETHERNET NETWORK

BSNL had invited an EoI for 2,000 numbers of carrier ethernet network equipment. Alcatel-Lucent, Sterlite, Huawei, Teracom, Syrma, ZTE, Tejas, HCL, Infosys, NSN, and Appsis expressed interest. The technical evaluation is on. Shortlisted companies will be issued tender documents.

FINANCIAL BID OPENING AWAITED FOR SMF VRLA BATTERY SETS

MTNL, Mumbai had invited a tender for supply of SMF VRLA battery sets for 132 nos. The technical bid was opened on March 16, 2012. Exide Batteries, Amara Raja, and Energy Leader are the bidders and financial bid opening is awaited.

ORDERS AWAITED FOR PROVIDING O AND M SERVICES

MTNL had invited a tender for providing O and M Services for wireless Network of MTNL, Delhi and NCR Towns. Financial bid opened on June 28, 2012. Zephyer, Nutek, and Cosmos are the bidders. Orders are awaited.

FINANCIAL BID OPENED FOR 24F AND 48F ARMOURED OPTICAL FIBER CABLE

Railtel had invited a tender for supply of 1322 KM of 24F and 712 KM of 48F armoured optical fiber cable. Financial bid opened on June 12, 2012, and TTL was the sole bidder. The tender may be rebid as there was only one bidder.

ORDERS AWAITED FOR SUPPLY AND SUPERVISION OF MPLS ROUTERS

RailTel had invited a tender for supply and supervision of Installation of MPLS Routers on existing MPLS Network. The approximate cost of the tender is Rs. 2 crore. Financial bid has been opened and orders are awaited.

PMO Sets Rs. 20,000 Crore for Broadband Rollout at Village Level

The Government is set to speed up the National Optical Fiber Network distribution to provide broadband connectivity to two and a half lakh gram panchayats. A coordination committee headed by the Telecom Secretary has been set up by The Prime Minister's Office. Bharat Broadband Network Ltd, a company set up for this on February 25, 2012 will implement the project valued at Rs. 20,000 crore.

The coordination committee has been tasked with assessing the requirements of various central ministries or departments to set up a pan-India network that will offer Government-to-citizen services up to panchayat level. At the same time, it will also assess the requirements of state governments for a pan-State network. A similar exercise is planned for public sector undertakings of both the central and state governments to offer services up to panchayat level.

The committee will comprise Secretaries from key government departments, and the chiefs of Bharat Broadband and BSNL as members. The administrator of the USO Fund, which will provide the money will be the convenor.

Private Investments

Bharti Airtel Selects Alcatel Lucent

Bharti Airtel has selected Alcatel-Lucent to create Internet protocol (IP) access network - based on carrier Ethernet technology (CEN), enabling the operator to deliver faster mobile broadband speeds to its customers and meet the surging bandwidth requirements of customers while accessing data, video, and Internet services on an array of devices, such as smart-phones, tablets, and laptops. The key elements of the Bharti Airtel mobile backhaul network are Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 service router, 7705 service aggregation router (SAR) and 5620 service aware manager.

HP and Bharti Airtel Join Hands to Offer Cloud Services

Bharti Airtel has partnered with Hewlett-Packard to offer cloud-based e-mail, accounting packages, business software, and storage services to small and mid-sized businesses, a move to increase revenue from data services when voice-based income has been declining.
For HP, the five-year deal will mean that it gains market access for its cloud computing technologies without having to spend on marketing to SMBs who form part of Bharti Airtel's customer base. The telecom company has 30,000 SMB customers for internet and mobile services and now it will be able to expand that portfolio of services to include accounting software, storage, business software and additional computing resources.

The service has been named as The Cloud Enablement Platform and it will be hosted in India by HP. The cloud-based applications will be offered on a pay-as-you-go model and meets TRAI's norms on hosting data locally.

NSN Equips GSM-R Infrastructure in Kolkata

Indian Railways has collaborated with Nokia Siemens Networks for equipping the Kolkata metro line with Railway (GSM-R) infrastructure. This is the fifth project by Indian Railways and this initiative will improve the safety and reliability of the Kolkata metro line while lowering operational costs for the Railways.

As part of its GSM-R deployments, Nokia Siemens Networks will provide its flexi base stations and flexi base station controllers. The company is supplying all operational components including switching centers, intelligent network (IN) platforms, service and management platforms, controller data transmission elements and mobile handsets for drivers. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks will also provide in-building solution to enhance indoor coverage for the Kolkata metro project. It will offer care services that include spare part management, software maintenance, third-party software support, and training.

Alcatel and Ericsson Emerge Front Runners for RCom Deal

Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson have emerged as front runners for Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom)'s Rs. 8,000 crore long-term outsourcing contract. The project is to be awarded to a single operator and is expected to be finalized in July. Other telecom equipment makers, including Nokia Siemens Network, Huawei Technology Co Ltd, and ZTE Corp, have also bid for the contract.

The project includes outsourcing end-to-end management services, including operational planning of the network, management and maintenance of GSM, CDMA and wireline networks, fiber, utilities, internet protocol, and field assurance (quality control). Only information technology (IT) services and customer services will be kept out of the contract.

Huawei to invest Rs. 10,200 crore in India

Huawei plans to invest Rs. 10,200 crore (USD 2 billion) over the next four years in India as it looks to market consumer devices and set up global R&D centre. The company is also looking forward on the roll out of 4G LTE services in India and is targeting more than 50 percent share of the contracts coming in.

The company began work on setting up a research and development centre in Bangalore last year, and is investing Rs. 225 crore (USD 150 million) in the facility, which is expected to become operational by June 2013. The company also has a global service resource centre (GSRC) in Bangalore along with a global network operations centre (GNOC), which is its largest such centre outside of China. These centers cater to its clients across 140 countries. The company is also planning to set up a global technology centre (GTEC) in Bangalore, in 2012 or 2013. GTEC will handle technical issues of customers globally.

HCL Infosystems Acquires Edurix Business

HCL Infosystems Ltd. has signed a business transfer agreement for acquiring Edurix Business of designing and implementing content for the K-12 education segment from Attano Media and Education Private Ltd., a company that provides content through digital medium to students.

Tech Mahindra and ZTEsoft in a pact

Tech Mahindra has signed a strategic partnership with ZTEsoft to offer solutions for telecom operators and facilitate the rationalization of legacy IT architecture, reduce time to market and enhance customer services and improve the quality. Customers of Tech Mahindra and ZTEsoft can get the benefit of the consolidated database architecture which ensures reduction of complexity and related IT costs and time to market. The convergent fixed/mobile, IT/Telecom architecture of the ZSmart Suite enables operators to engage in new business models and partnerships with OTT players.

RIL, HFCL Tie Up For 4G Launch

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has entered into a partnership with Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) to roll out its 4G network. Reliance-owned Infotel Broadband will focus on key aspects of the network and monitor the rollout, and the ground-level execution and management will be done by HFCL.

Tata Com Deploys Amdocs Solution

Tata Communications has entered in a contract to deploy Amdocs Resource Manager, a part of Amdocs' service fulfillment solution, to consolidate its network inventory and to provide the organization with an enterprise-wide view of its network resources. This deployment now in addition to India expands to cover the North America markets and gives Tata Communications bi-directional operability between its Indian and North American inventories, providing a global view of its network inventory and enhancing services to the company's enterprise customers.

Bharti Acquires 49 Percent Stake in Qualcomm's 4G Venture

Bharti Airtel Ltd. will acquire 49 percent stake in Qualcomm's broadband wireless access (BWA) unit, and will take its complete control in the next two years. The operator has decided to make an initial investment of Rs. 919 crore (USD 165 million) in the unit. The acquisition will be completed partly by way of acquiring the 26 percent equity interest currently equally held by Global Holding Corporation Private Limited and Tulip Telecom Ltd., and the balance by acquiring fresh equity in Qualcomm's BWA operations.

Qualcomm currently holds BWA licenses in Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana, and Kerala, while Bharti has BWA licenses in Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab, and Maharashtra. The deal gives Bharti an opportunity to extend its 4G services to four more circles. As 
part of the deal, Qualcomm will assist Bharti by providing technical assistance for maintaining network architecture and optimization, infrastructure and device testing, as well as continuing to develop and support the underlying technology and the LTE TDD ecosystem.

Genpact and Ariba Expand Alliance

Genpact and Ariba have expanded partnership beyond invoice solutions to encompass the Ariba's cloud-based collaborative business commerce solutions into Genpact's source-to-pay offering. Genpact will combine Ariba's solutions with its service offerings to create a new offering; to enable medium to large enterprises to improve their visibility into the procurement process and drive greater cost savings.

The joint solution will provide access to Ariba collaborative commerce platform including, cloud-based applications for spend analytics, eProcurement, eSourcing, supplier performance management, contract management, working capital management, and eInvoicing.