India's state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will float a new tender for installing 40-50 million
GSM lines, to be completed within 8-9 months, to expand its telecom services, the telecoms minister said on Tuesday.
"I am told that they are ready to go for a larger tender ... 40-50 million lines," A. Raja said.
Earlier, BSNL had said it did not have plans to issue a fresh tender as it was still finalising an existing order.
Read more in The Financial Express
NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will float a new tender for installing 40-50 million GSM lines, to be completed within 8-9 months, to expand its telecom services, the telecoms minister said on Tuesday.
"I am told that they are ready to go for a larger tender ... 40-50 million lines," A Raja told reporters. Earlier, BSNL had said it did not have plans to issue a fresh tender as it was still finalising an existing order.
BSNL has ordered 14 million 2G GSM lines from Ericsson and Nokia, the first phase of a 23 million line order that will be done in two steps, but was waiting for the companies to respond.
The firm cut the size of its original tender to 23 million lines from 45.5 million lines after Raja asked it to negotiate a lower price.
International long distance calls (ISD) may become cheaper as telecom regulator Trai is considering reducing levy on both outgoing and incoming ISD calls from April 1.According to sources, Trai will be meeting this week to finalise the annual review of access deficit charge (ADC), a levy being paid by private operators to BSNL for rolling out services in remote and rural areas, which may be reduced on ISD traffic.The ADC on both outgoing and incoming ISD calls may be reduced by up to 50% and the current total ADC of 1.5% of gross revenue is also likely to come down to 1%.As per the road map, the total ADC, currently at Rs 3,335 crore, should be lowered to Rs 1,600-1,800 crore for FY08 before being phased out by next fiscal to 0.
Read more at Business Standard
MUMBAI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) will invest over Rs 4,500 crore for introducing a convergent billing system across India. The PSU telco is close to finalising the winner for what will be one of the world's largest tenders for billing systems.
IT giants Wipro Infotech, HCL Technologies, TCS, Satyam Computers and Tech Mahindra have qualified technical evaluation and financial evaluation is underway. The contract will be split between two players and the winners are likely to be announced next month, sources told ET.
Read more at Economic Times
