The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Delay in buying switching equipment hits BSNL

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 25, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Delay in buying switching equipment hits BSNL

Suresh Krishnamoorthy

PSU slips to ‘no. 3’ position in cellular industry

HYDERABAD: Delays in procurement of switching equipment to augment capacity of CellOne’s GSM (Global Standards for Mobile Communication) has led to the public sector undertaking slipping to the No. 3 position in the cellular industry.

Delays of a few months in placing orders for GSM switching equipment to add 45.5 million CellOne

connections were the sole reason for State telecom circles being unable to issue connections, said A. Viswanath, Andhra Pradesh Circle president, Sanchar Nigam Executives Association (India).

Tenders finalised

He told The Hindu that about eight months ago, tenders were finalis ed and orders were to be placed with Nokia for switching equipment, when another equipment provider, Motorola, moved the courts.

As the case was not dealt with properly, it took the legal brains in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) six months to sort things out. As things stood today, Mr. Viswanath said BSNL was pushed to the third position.

Hutch surpassed BSNL, recording a 5.4 per cent growth in subsc riber base Industry statistics said Hutch had a market share of 22.36 per cent, while BSNL had 21.43 per cent.

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