RCom to award GSM rollout contract to Huawei

New Delhi: In a bid to speed up its GSM foray Reliance Communications is close to awarding a nationwide GSM rollout contract to Chinese gear manufacturer Huawei. The deal is estimated to be worth Rs 2000 crore. A number of equipment providers including Ericsson and Nokia Siemens had shown interest in the project. This will be Huawei’s first significant contract in the GSM space in India. Huawei had earlier supplied CDMA equipment to RCom and MTNL as well.

The contract to Huawei is part of RCom’s plans to invest over Rs. 6000 crore in setting up a pan Indian GSM operation. The agreement between Huawei and RCom is likely to be announced over the next week. RCom is expected to launch GSM mobile services this year after it got spectrum from the Government.