GTL wins Rs 100 crore telecom contract

Telecom infrastructure services provider GTL has bagged an initial turnkey services contract of $25 million (Rs 100 crore) from a GSM operator. However, the name of the operator was not disclosed citing a non-disclosure agreement.

Under the contract, the company will deploy telecom infrastructure and offer operations and maintenance services for three years. GTL will lead manage the project and would also offer equipment supply, civil and electrical works and professional services, the company said in a release here today.

The telecom operator has a major presence in the north and north east circles, and is expanding operations across Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal, GTL said.

The operator has also recently received additional licences for a pan-India expansion and is planning to invest over $2 billion for the roll-out of telecom networks in the next 2-3 years.

GTL had recently sold its IT enterprise and management business unit to France Telecom's subsidiary, Orange Business Services, for an undisclosed sum.

Indian telecommunication makers are increasingly looking at outsourcing network management and rolling out services to global manufacturers. This enables them to concentrate on their growth plans, which mainly consist of adding more subscribers and expanding across the country.

IBM had earlier signed a similar deal with Bharti Airtel, while it will have similar pacts with operators such as Vodafone in the US, Hanaro in Korea and Telstra in Australia.

Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, had bagged a $900 million (Rs 3,690 crore) deal from Bharti Airtel for the expansion of wireless and fixed line services.

Bharti signed a $400 million deal with the Swedish equipment vendor Ericsson in February 2004 to build and manage networks across 13 circles. This was followed by a $250 million deal in June 2005. Then in August 2006, the Sunil Mittal company signed the biggest deal to date - a $1 billion network expansion - with Ericsson.

It had also signed a three-year deal worth $275 million with the Finnish vendor Nokia and a $125 million three-year agreement later in August 2005.

It also signed another deal in October 2006 for the same eight circles for $400 million. BSNL had awarded two hosting agreements to Ericsson for downloads and ringback tones.