Swedish telecom equipment supplier Ericsson, on Wednesday, bagged a Rs 8,000 crore (US$2 billion) order from Bharti Airtel.
As part of the Bharti deal, Ericsson would design, plan, deploy, optimise and manage Bharti Airtel’s GSM network across 15 circles in India as well as for its pan-India prepaid platform across 23 circles. This is Bharti’s second outsourcing deal in a month after it gave a $900 million contract to Nokia-Siemens for network expansion and managing services across eight circles.
As per the current deal, Ericsson would provide 2G/3G core based mobile soft switch for data services and a pan-India prepaid platform using Intelligent Network technology for better service quality to the prepaid users. This deal covers the core network part of 3G but for starting 3G services the company would have to float another tender for radio enable network. Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg , Vodafone Group Plc, has sold a 4.99 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel Ltd. Bharti Group now controls more than 50 per cent of voting rights.
