$10-Million Reliance Cell Order For Ericsson

Reliance Cellular has placed a $10-million (Rs 36 crore)-order for supply of microwave radio equipment on Ericsson.

The equipment will be used for building a radio transmission backbone within cities in which the Reliance company plans to roll out cellular services in the first year of operation.

Sources said the company had decided to wait for some months before placing orders for radio equipment to set up circle-wide backbones. Reliance Cellular holds licences to operate cellular services in West Bengal, the North-East, Assam, Orissa, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Ericsson already has a contract with the company to supply seven 50,000-lines capacity mobile switching centres (MSCs, the equivalent of an exchange in a fixed-line network). The deal was pegged at some $25-30 million (Rs 90-108 crore) by sources.

 

The cellular network of the company is being jointly set up by Motorola and Ericsson. The former has won the contract to design and set up base stations all across the seven circles. The contract was worth some $105-million (Rs 378 crore) one of the lowest prices struck for supply of cellular equipment. Reliance Cellular was the last cellular operator to place orders on equipment suppliers.

With this order, Ericsson consolidates its position as one of the largest equipment suppliers in the country.