Datacom, Sistema to offer $300 mn IT deals
ET 29 May 2009,
MUMBAI: Datacom and Sistema Shyam TeleServices, two new entrants in the telecom space, have shortlisted Wipro, Tech Mahindra and IBM for an IT outsourcing contract of close to $150 million each. This is a boon for the IT service providers at a time when the slowdown has resulted in a drop in the number of books. Videocon-promoted Datacom has received licences in all the 22 telecom circles in India and is in the process of launching its operations. “Yes, the three (IT vendors) have been shortlisted and are competing for the contract. The deal value has not been finalised,” said VN Dhoot, chairman of Videocon group. Sistema Shyam TeleServices, a joint venture between Russia’s telecom giant Sistema and India’s Shyam group, is in the process of launching CDMA operations in 18 circles. Though the company did not confirm the names of IT firms, a source in the know said that it has invited bids from the three IT vendors mentioned earlier for IT infrastructure-related services in these circles. Sistema Shyam has recently launched operations in Kolkata taking its total number of active circles to four. While IBM and Tech Mahindra declined to comment on the development, Wipro officials were unavailable for comment. On the exact structure of the contracts, it was not possible to ascertain that from Datacom. However, Sistema Shyam in an e-mail response, said that it would be a fixed value, short-term contract wherein the IT assets would not be obtained on a lease, but would be acquired by the telco. The scope of work broadly includes data centre construction, applications management services and infrastructure hardware supply and support. Sistema-Shyam has already outsourced its IT requirements for its existing four circles. “Key vendors, who are working on our various IT projects, are Sitronics, Tech Mahindra, IBM, HP, Wipro and Oracle. Since our IT is based on a centralised model, the projects are uniform for all circles and are not taken separately,” CEO Vsevolod Rozanov told ET. The new domestic telecom operators have kept the order book running for IT companies that have been hit by the slowdown. Earlier, Wipro had bagged a large full IT outsourcing project from Unitech Wireless worth approximately Rs 2,500 crore over a nine-year period. Most of the new service providers are expected to launch their services in the next 12 months. “We expect operators, such as Unitech, Swan and Datacom to commence by July 2010 given the regulatory pressures,” said India Infoline’s telecom analyst Bhavesh Gandhi.
ET 29 May 2009,
MUMBAI: Datacom and Sistema Shyam TeleServices, two new entrants in the telecom space, have shortlisted Wipro, Tech Mahindra and IBM for an IT outsourcing contract of close to $150 million each. This is a boon for the IT service providers at a time when the slowdown has resulted in a drop in the number of books. Videocon-promoted Datacom has received licences in all the 22 telecom circles in India and is in the process of launching its operations. “Yes, the three (IT vendors) have been shortlisted and are competing for the contract. The deal value has not been finalised,” said VN Dhoot, chairman of Videocon group. Sistema Shyam TeleServices, a joint venture between Russia’s telecom giant Sistema and India’s Shyam group, is in the process of launching CDMA operations in 18 circles. Though the company did not confirm the names of IT firms, a source in the know said that it has invited bids from the three IT vendors mentioned earlier for IT infrastructure-related services in these circles. Sistema Shyam has recently launched operations in Kolkata taking its total number of active circles to four. While IBM and Tech Mahindra declined to comment on the development, Wipro officials were unavailable for comment. On the exact structure of the contracts, it was not possible to ascertain that from Datacom. However, Sistema Shyam in an e-mail response, said that it would be a fixed value, short-term contract wherein the IT assets would not be obtained on a lease, but would be acquired by the telco. The scope of work broadly includes data centre construction, applications management services and infrastructure hardware supply and support. Sistema-Shyam has already outsourced its IT requirements for its existing four circles. “Key vendors, who are working on our various IT projects, are Sitronics, Tech Mahindra, IBM, HP, Wipro and Oracle. Since our IT is based on a centralised model, the projects are uniform for all circles and are not taken separately,” CEO Vsevolod Rozanov told ET. The new domestic telecom operators have kept the order book running for IT companies that have been hit by the slowdown. Earlier, Wipro had bagged a large full IT outsourcing project from Unitech Wireless worth approximately Rs 2,500 crore over a nine-year period. Most of the new service providers are expected to launch their services in the next 12 months. “We expect operators, such as Unitech, Swan and Datacom to commence by July 2010 given the regulatory pressures,” said India Infoline’s telecom analyst Bhavesh Gandhi.
AP High Court asks BSNL to file response to Nokia Siemens
Business Line 29.05.2009
New Delhi, May 28 The Andhra Pradesh High Court has asked Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to maintain status quo in the tendering process for awarding to Huawei a contract for rolling out GSM network in the South zone. The status quo will be maintained till the next date of hearing, June 3. The court has asked BSNL to file a response to a petition filed by Nokia Siemens challenging the tendering process. The Chinese vendor Huawei will be a party to the case.
Nokia Siemens had challenged BSNL’s decision to disqualify its bids on technical grounds. The Finnish company said that it had supplied equipment to BSNL on previous occasions and, therefore, it was unfair to find technical problems with its bid. It alleged that BSNL had designed the tender to favour some vendors. According to Nokia Siemens, the technical deficiencies in its bid have not been explained. In a letter written earlier to the Department of Telecom, NSN said that it had clarified all questions which BSNL had raised during the valuation of the technical bids
A similar petition was filed by Nokia Siemens in the Punjab and Haryana High Court which asked BSNL to submit its reasons for disqualifying the company. The Finnish company is examining BSNL’s reply given to the Punjab and Haryana High Court before taking the next step.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order will delay BSNL’s plans to roll out 93 million lines across the country. The project was divided into four zones. While Ericsson has been shortlisted for North and East zones, Huawei was chosen for South. Bids for the West zone were not opened by BSNL after the Intelligence Bureau raised questions about giving contracts to Chinese vendors in sensitive regions. Though the IB had raised objections to giving contracts in the South region to Chinese vendors, BSNL went ahead with Huawei.
India's 2nd-largest CDMA market
ET 29 May 2009,
MUMBAI: India has become only the second country in the world to have more than 100 million CDMA-based (code division multiple access) mobile phone subscribers after the US, which has 157 million CDMA users, according to an industry body. While India overtook China to become the second-largest CDMA market, the country’s leading service provider Reliance Communications (RCOM) has become the second-largest CDMA service provider behind the USA’s Verizon Wireless, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) said here on Thursday. Tata Teleservices is ranked fourth in the list of top global players, behind China Telecom. It took CDMA, which competes with the GSM (global system of mobile communication) platform globally, six-and-a-half years to reach the 100 million mark in India after being introduced in December 2002. GSM is much more popular, accounting for 80% of the global market, according to its promoter GSM Association. While there are 475 million CDMA users in the world, GSM standard is being used by over three billion people. In India, the GSM user base is close to 300 million. CDG executive director Perry LaForge attributed the rapid growth of CDMA users in India to a wide selection of affordable devices and technologies offering CDMA voice and data services in urban and rural areas. “CDMA allows a rich telecom experience, especially on the data side, and we are confident that experience will only get better, especially as 3G arrives and we are able to unleash the full potential of applications and services,” Tata Tele MD Anil Sardana said.
Raja retains Telecom Ministry in new government
New Delhi, 28 May 2009 : A Raja will continue as the telecom minister in the newly formed cabinet. He was sworn in as the cabinet minister today and by late evening was declared that he will be once again India's Communication Man. The last tenure was a small one but this time he gets full 5 years to control Communication and IT ministry.
Telecom sector is one of the fastest growing in India and contributed a lot in strengthening the economy even in the recession period. There is no stopping for the telecom sector except for its own issues.
Mr. Raja will have to start from where he left as nothing has changed; all the issues are waiting to be resolved. This is going to be an uphill task for him to streamline the things and then one by one removing them from the list of pending issues. The DOT has already prepared the list and so has the telecom industry.
3G auctions are at the top of the list and will be the first task Mr. Raja has to deal with. Its now the whole country which is waiting for it not just the telecom industry. Spectrum allocation, uniform license fees, BSNL IPO are some regular issues apart from the new initiatives that he will be suppose to bring in to this world’s fastest growing market.
Last time he was targeted on the new telecom license allotment issue and was blamed for throwing away licenses at a low price. Although it was nothing he has to with, it’s the Indian telecom dynamics that had attracted big global telecom names. They paid such a high amount just to ensure they become a part of this market.
We think that this time he will be more careful while handling such issues. Indian telecom sector expects lot from him and so are the Indian subscribers as mobile has became an integral part of their life.
Business Line 29.05.2009
New Delhi, May 28 The Andhra Pradesh High Court has asked Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to maintain status quo in the tendering process for awarding to Huawei a contract for rolling out GSM network in the South zone. The status quo will be maintained till the next date of hearing, June 3. The court has asked BSNL to file a response to a petition filed by Nokia Siemens challenging the tendering process. The Chinese vendor Huawei will be a party to the case.
Nokia Siemens had challenged BSNL’s decision to disqualify its bids on technical grounds. The Finnish company said that it had supplied equipment to BSNL on previous occasions and, therefore, it was unfair to find technical problems with its bid. It alleged that BSNL had designed the tender to favour some vendors. According to Nokia Siemens, the technical deficiencies in its bid have not been explained. In a letter written earlier to the Department of Telecom, NSN said that it had clarified all questions which BSNL had raised during the valuation of the technical bids
A similar petition was filed by Nokia Siemens in the Punjab and Haryana High Court which asked BSNL to submit its reasons for disqualifying the company. The Finnish company is examining BSNL’s reply given to the Punjab and Haryana High Court before taking the next step.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order will delay BSNL’s plans to roll out 93 million lines across the country. The project was divided into four zones. While Ericsson has been shortlisted for North and East zones, Huawei was chosen for South. Bids for the West zone were not opened by BSNL after the Intelligence Bureau raised questions about giving contracts to Chinese vendors in sensitive regions. Though the IB had raised objections to giving contracts in the South region to Chinese vendors, BSNL went ahead with Huawei.
India's 2nd-largest CDMA market
ET 29 May 2009,
MUMBAI: India has become only the second country in the world to have more than 100 million CDMA-based (code division multiple access) mobile phone subscribers after the US, which has 157 million CDMA users, according to an industry body. While India overtook China to become the second-largest CDMA market, the country’s leading service provider Reliance Communications (RCOM) has become the second-largest CDMA service provider behind the USA’s Verizon Wireless, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) said here on Thursday. Tata Teleservices is ranked fourth in the list of top global players, behind China Telecom. It took CDMA, which competes with the GSM (global system of mobile communication) platform globally, six-and-a-half years to reach the 100 million mark in India after being introduced in December 2002. GSM is much more popular, accounting for 80% of the global market, according to its promoter GSM Association. While there are 475 million CDMA users in the world, GSM standard is being used by over three billion people. In India, the GSM user base is close to 300 million. CDG executive director Perry LaForge attributed the rapid growth of CDMA users in India to a wide selection of affordable devices and technologies offering CDMA voice and data services in urban and rural areas. “CDMA allows a rich telecom experience, especially on the data side, and we are confident that experience will only get better, especially as 3G arrives and we are able to unleash the full potential of applications and services,” Tata Tele MD Anil Sardana said.
Raja retains Telecom Ministry in new government
New Delhi, 28 May 2009 : A Raja will continue as the telecom minister in the newly formed cabinet. He was sworn in as the cabinet minister today and by late evening was declared that he will be once again India's Communication Man. The last tenure was a small one but this time he gets full 5 years to control Communication and IT ministry.
Telecom sector is one of the fastest growing in India and contributed a lot in strengthening the economy even in the recession period. There is no stopping for the telecom sector except for its own issues.
Mr. Raja will have to start from where he left as nothing has changed; all the issues are waiting to be resolved. This is going to be an uphill task for him to streamline the things and then one by one removing them from the list of pending issues. The DOT has already prepared the list and so has the telecom industry.
3G auctions are at the top of the list and will be the first task Mr. Raja has to deal with. Its now the whole country which is waiting for it not just the telecom industry. Spectrum allocation, uniform license fees, BSNL IPO are some regular issues apart from the new initiatives that he will be suppose to bring in to this world’s fastest growing market.
Last time he was targeted on the new telecom license allotment issue and was blamed for throwing away licenses at a low price. Although it was nothing he has to with, it’s the Indian telecom dynamics that had attracted big global telecom names. They paid such a high amount just to ensure they become a part of this market.
We think that this time he will be more careful while handling such issues. Indian telecom sector expects lot from him and so are the Indian subscribers as mobile has became an integral part of their life.
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