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After rejection, ZTE is the lowest bidder in BSNL tender
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 09 December 2010, 01:39 IST
New Delhi: ZTE, the Chinese telecom company, has emerged to be the lowest bidder in BSNL's GSM network tender for deploying 5.5 million telephone lines in the northern and eastern parts of the country. This after the government denied permission to ZTE to supply GSM equipment to BSNL citing security concern, reports Manoj Gairola of Hindustan Times.
The bidders for the GSM equipment suplly included companies like Huawei, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel Lucent. The Home Ministry had ruled that it was compulsory for all the vendors to share their source code with the government. This ruling led to Ericsson, which accounted for 50 percent of BSNL's existing network, pulling out of the tender citing it will not be able to meet the security guidelines issued by the ministry.
Here BSNL will face a crucial challenge with regard to the technology. It will be a humongous task for BSNL to integrate the new technology with the existing network. It will also require the operator to shift existing equipment to another location and install the new equipment.
Home Ministry had been advised by Intelligence agencies to prevent telecom operators from using Chinese equipment in networks due to security reasons. This led BSNL to cancel a tender with Huawei of 93 million lines, leaving Ericsson to be the sole bidder in few circles.