BSNL inks deal with Chinese firm Fiberhome to manufacture equipment

  State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Friday inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China-based firm Fiberhome to jointly start manufacturing telecom equipment and optical fiber cable in BSNL factories.

BSNL has seven telecom factories with around 1600 employees and elaborate infrastructure. Telecom factories are manufacturing several customer end equipment and testing tools for internal consumption of BSNL.

The MoU between the two companies is expected to bring telecom manufacturing technology and expertise to India. This will help India set up manufacturing base under 'Make in India' programme at a low cost, BSNL said in a statement.

"This agreement will help India to get high quality telecom equipment at reasonable cost and will also reduce deployment time. BSNL always stride hard to fulfil government dreams by adopting workable and practical programme like this," BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava said after signing the agreement.

Lee, President of Fiberhome, also expressed optimism that the joint venture comes at a time when demand for telecom equipment is increasing all over the world. He felt that BSNL-Fiberhome may export telecom equipment to Asia Pacific region shortly.

Fiberhome, which is the parent company of Fiberhome India Limited, has one of the largest telecom manufacturing base in China. It produces equipment at transport layer and access layer of telecom network.

Being one of the top leaders in telecom manufacturing in the world, the company has decided to heavily invest in India with BSNL, a press statement said.