Motorola secures €57m GSM deal from India's BSNL

Motorola won a €57 million (US$90 million) contract from state-run telecoms firm BSNL to supply GSM network equipment, a Reuters report said.

The deal will help BSNL, the fourth largest wireless telecoms firm in India, add 2.3 million subscribers in southern India, the Reuters report said, quoting Motorola.

BSNL plans to add 33.5 million mobile lines in the year ending March 2009.

In April, it said it had a capacity of 36 million GSM lines, most of which had been used up, and 5.5 million CDMA lines, of which it had 1 million free.

A lack of infrastructure has resulted in BSNL, India's top telecoms firm by subscriber numbers when landlines are added, attracting fewer new users each month than leaders Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication and Vodafone Essar, controlled by Vodafone.

Motorola said it would ship GSM network equipment and provide network services, including both software and hardware support, to BSNL under the contract.

In end-March, BSNL had 40.8 million mobile subscribers out of a total of 261.1 million users in India. Market leader Bharti Airtel had nearly 62 million users, Reliance 45.8 million and Vodafone Essar 44.1 million, according to data from India's telecom regulator.