Wireless vendors are reaping contract dividends as carriers loosen their purse strings. L.M. Ericsson announced three contracts today, while Siemens AG and Alcatel Corp. announced one each.
Ericsson said it won a UMTS deal with Mobilkom Austria, a CDMA2000 1x deal with Sichuan Unicom and a GSM contract with Sichuan Mobile. The two China deals are worth $120 million, said Ericsson.
Its Austrian contract will last through 2007 and requires the vendor to supply hardware and software, including base stations, said Ericsson. The Swedish equipment maker supplied the core network and radio base stations for the carrier’s first-phase UMTS rollout in 2002.
In China, Ericsson will supply an end-to-end solution for Sichuan Unicom and a Sichuan Mobile GSM network in the southwest of the country. Both contracts will be finished at the end of 2004.
Siemens said it has signed a $30 million deal to supply Thai carrier Advanced Info Service with EDGE technology. Under the terms, the EDGE gear will cover cities such as Chonburi, Pattaya, Nakornratchasrima and Khon Kaen in the first instance.
It will set the tone for the carrier’s Internet Protocol-based multimedia services, such as video streaming, said Siemens. This will precede the expansion of AIS’ GSM/GPRS networks, raising the capacity from 600,000 subscribers to 2 million subscribers across the country, said the vendor.
Alcatel signed a $68 million contract to supply and install GSM gear for carrier BSNL of India. The deal covers Indian cities such as Gujrat, Maharashtra, MP and Chattisgarh.
This deal follows Alcatel’s agreement with ITI to produce and deploy Alcatel infrastructure known as Evolium. ITI will acquire Alcatel GSM technology to make equipment under a licensing agreement.
“Now with the introduction of Alcatel’s industry-leading GSM technology, we are able to enter the mobile segment and provide a complete portfolio of mobile solutions to our public and private telecom operators,” said YK Pandey, chairman and managing director of ITI.
