BSNL not to Source Eqpt. from Huawei in West Zone-News

BSNL not to source equipment from Huawei in west zone

21 May 2009, 1754 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: State-run BSNL has dropped China's Huawei Technologies from a list of potential telecom equipment suppliers for the west zone, possibly
because intelligence officials were unhappy with the vendor's entry in the sensitive area.

BSNL dropped the Chinese vendor after the IB wrote to it, saying Huawei cannot be entrusted with the telecom expansion on the sensitive western zone.

However, BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal said the telecom company was not looking at expanding in the western zone as of now.

"Huawei is being considered only for south zone ... It is not being considered for the west zone ... at the moment we do not need any immediate expansion for the west zone as the region has capacity of nine million GSM lines provided by ITI-Alcatel from the previous tender," Goyal told PTI.

He said the PSU is currently evaluating the financial bids of the vendors and there is no timeline yet when the winners would be announced.

Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson was the lowest bidder (L1) in North and East zones while Huawei was the L1 in South and West, and there were sole bidders in their respective zones.

But now that Huawei would not be considered for West Zone, Goyal said that for this region BSNL is not at the moment thinking of awarding it to any other vendor.
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