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Juicy contracts have started flowing back to top Chinese telecom gearmakers. After Huawei clinched a plum 3G network equipment contract from Tata Teleservices , it was rival ZTE Corps turn to land a Rs 300-crore contract to supply WiMax systems to BSNL for its broadband rollout.
After a virtual blanket ban on all shades of Chinese telecom gear imports for the past seven months, the controls appear to have suddenly gone, suggesting the governments fears about Chinese gear posing a national security threat are on the wane.
ZTE India chairman & managing director Dr DK Ghosh told ET the company would supply the gamut of WiMax systems to hasten BSNLs WiMax broadband rollout over the next six months.
Weve entered into a pact with BSNL to supply diverse WiMax systems valued at `300 crore. The gear will be a mix of WiMax base-stations, switches and specialised WiMax terminals/handhelds. A portion of the equipment will be manufactured at ZTE Indias Manesar plant, he said.
Whats not known, however, is whether ZTE India will directly supply WiMax gear to BSNL or its designated franchisees. A few months ago, BSNL had issued letters of intent to Teracom, Take Solutions, Adishwar India and Ampoules to launch WiMax-based broadband services as franchisees.
They had been asked to roll out such services based on a revenue sharing model. Roughly 10-32 % of the revenues from Wimax-based broadband services was to accrue to the state-owned telco.
Be that as it may, the latest developments signal a marked change in the mindset of the Indian security establishment. Even till recently, the Union home ministry had issued umpteen warnings that foreign telecom equipment vendors, especially the Chinese, had the capability of installing spyware and malware to monitor voice and data traffic and disable networks.
Industry circles believe it was the recent missive from the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) urging the communications and home ministries to review the new stringent security standards that had been labelled too tough by foreign telecom gear makers that have prompted the DoT and the home ministry to clear telecom gear imports from Chinese vendors.
Earlier, both Huawei and ZTE had complained that numerous contracts allotted to them by phone firms had not been approved since February 18 even though the Centre all along maintained that there was no official blanket ban on import of telecom gear from China.
Accordingly, the latest wave of contracts to Chinese telecom gearmakers comes at a time when the government has fixed the national broadband rollout target at a 100 million lines by Year 2015 from the present level of 8 million.
While 3G mobile broadband rollouts are slated to account for nearly 55% of new additions, WiMax rollouts are expected to account for nearly 35% of the national broadband services target over the next five years.
Incidentally, both BSNL and state-owned MTNL were allocated broadband wireless access (BWA) airwaves before private players won them in the June 2010 auctions. BSNL was given 20 MHz of BWA airwaves in 2.5 GHz band, which the defence ministry felt was similar to the airwaves used for defence-related satellite communication.
So much so, the defence ministry had pointed out to the telecom department that BSNLs proposed Wimax-based broadband services could be a potent security threat as they could interfere with the mobile satellite services (MSS) being used by the armed forces. Even the Department of Space (DoS) had reportedly objected to the use of 2.5 GHz band for BWA services.
http://http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/ZTE-bags-Rs-300-cr-BSNL-contract/articleshow/6503436.cms
After a virtual blanket ban on all shades of Chinese telecom gear imports for the past seven months, the controls appear to have suddenly gone, suggesting the governments fears about Chinese gear posing a national security threat are on the wane.
ZTE India chairman & managing director Dr DK Ghosh told ET the company would supply the gamut of WiMax systems to hasten BSNLs WiMax broadband rollout over the next six months.
Weve entered into a pact with BSNL to supply diverse WiMax systems valued at `300 crore. The gear will be a mix of WiMax base-stations, switches and specialised WiMax terminals/handhelds. A portion of the equipment will be manufactured at ZTE Indias Manesar plant, he said.
Whats not known, however, is whether ZTE India will directly supply WiMax gear to BSNL or its designated franchisees. A few months ago, BSNL had issued letters of intent to Teracom, Take Solutions, Adishwar India and Ampoules to launch WiMax-based broadband services as franchisees.
They had been asked to roll out such services based on a revenue sharing model. Roughly 10-32 % of the revenues from Wimax-based broadband services was to accrue to the state-owned telco.
Be that as it may, the latest developments signal a marked change in the mindset of the Indian security establishment. Even till recently, the Union home ministry had issued umpteen warnings that foreign telecom equipment vendors, especially the Chinese, had the capability of installing spyware and malware to monitor voice and data traffic and disable networks.
Industry circles believe it was the recent missive from the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) urging the communications and home ministries to review the new stringent security standards that had been labelled too tough by foreign telecom gear makers that have prompted the DoT and the home ministry to clear telecom gear imports from Chinese vendors.
Earlier, both Huawei and ZTE had complained that numerous contracts allotted to them by phone firms had not been approved since February 18 even though the Centre all along maintained that there was no official blanket ban on import of telecom gear from China.
Accordingly, the latest wave of contracts to Chinese telecom gearmakers comes at a time when the government has fixed the national broadband rollout target at a 100 million lines by Year 2015 from the present level of 8 million.
While 3G mobile broadband rollouts are slated to account for nearly 55% of new additions, WiMax rollouts are expected to account for nearly 35% of the national broadband services target over the next five years.
Incidentally, both BSNL and state-owned MTNL were allocated broadband wireless access (BWA) airwaves before private players won them in the June 2010 auctions. BSNL was given 20 MHz of BWA airwaves in 2.5 GHz band, which the defence ministry felt was similar to the airwaves used for defence-related satellite communication.
So much so, the defence ministry had pointed out to the telecom department that BSNLs proposed Wimax-based broadband services could be a potent security threat as they could interfere with the mobile satellite services (MSS) being used by the armed forces. Even the Department of Space (DoS) had reportedly objected to the use of 2.5 GHz band for BWA services.
http://http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/ZTE-bags-Rs-300-cr-BSNL-contract/articleshow/6503436.cms
