Though American telecom major Motorola has not shown any interest in bidding one of the biggest telecom tender in the recent times floated by India’s state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for incorporating 93 million additional GSM (global systems for mobile communications) lines across the country, but other six world telecom giants - Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, and ZTE Corp - have already in the competition by bidding the tender valued at about $8.5-9 billion. The order is likely to be placed by early 2009, said a media report quoting BSNL Chairman Kuldeep Goyal.

Last year also, BSNL had floated similar tender for establishing 43 million GSM lines, when per line cost was $91. According to Mr. Goyal, such cost would be less this time. However, BSNL Director (finance) SD Saxena refused to divulge exact details of the deal, as the bids have yet not been opened. Even, if not less, taking @ $91 per line in-line with the last year’s deal, present deal could be $8.5-9 billion - a mammoth contract indeed! Reduction in price per line has been quoted as the main cause for Motorola’s staying off decision from the mega-project. However, according to the market analysts, BSNL was justified in lowering the bid prices, as the equipments costs have come down and also, primary infrastructure for laying the lines already exists in the country.

At present, BSNL is not able to increase it’s wireless subscribers owing to the infrastructure limitation. To enhance it’s operating capability and to ensure transparency in implementing the project, BSNL has divided the tender into four segments - 2G lines, 3G lines, infrastructure, and operating and business support systems - without imposing any restriction for bidding to any of these segments. One fourth of the 93 million lines have been kept reserved for 3G services, BSNL sources said. BSNL is expected to start providing 3G services across India by middle of 2009. On successful materialization of the tender, except east, all other zones of the country will receive 25 million additional GSM lines, while east will add 18 million lines for their customers.