State-owned BSNL is set to buy telecom gear worth Rs 400 crore from China's Huawei to upgrade its landline network, top company executives aware of the development told ET.
Huawei has emerged the lowest bidder for supplying both core and access equipment for transforming BSNL's wireline infrastructure, internally referred to as NGN or 'next-generation network'.
Accordingly, it will meet at least 60% of BSNL's equipment purchase contract for 4 million lines while the balance requirement may be met by rival Chinese vendor ZTE and Hyderabad-based Prithvi Information Solutions Ltd (PISL), who are the second lowest bidders for the 'core' and 'access' packages of the NGN tender respectively, the executives quoted above added. However, ZTE and PISL will first have to match Huawei's price to bag the rest of the deal as per the tender conditions.
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