Bharti Airtel has awarded Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson a $1 billion (about Rs 4500 crore or Rs 45 billion) contract extending over three years, to cover expansion and upgrade of its GSM, GPRS network as well as managed services to increase network capacity and services footprint.
The contract will enable Bharti Airtel rapidly expand its mobile services footprint further and reach out to all towns and cities in 15 telecom circles in the country.
The three-year service contract with Ericsson is towards the design, planning, supply and installation commissioning of Airtel networks in these circles, a Bharti statement said.
Last year Bharti Airtel had signed a $250 million (Rs 1,075 crore or Rs 10.75 billion) contract with Ericsson, to set up and maintain Airtel's cellular network in 3,000 towns and villages across the country.
In 2004, they had signed a $400 million agreement for supply of GSM network.
Ericsson will upgrade the network with mobile softswitch (Media Gateway and MSC Servers), the solution that paves the way to an all-IP network.
Bharti Airtel will be able to reduce the operational costs and introduce new services in a cost-efficient way.
The scope of the agreement extends to 15 Airtel circles of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, UP (West), Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, UP (East), Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East.
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