NT to sign contract for 5m mobile lines with Huawei

KATHMANDU, DEC 24 - 2012

Nepal Telecom (NT) has formally invited telecommunication equipment vendor Huawei Technologies to sign an agreement for 5.2 million mobile lines. The state-owned telecom giant said it issued a letter of acceptance to the Chinese firm on Friday asking it to conclude a contract within 15 days.

The proposed deal is Package A of NT’s mega project to distribute 10 million mobile lines. The Chinese vendor had quoted US$ 122 million for the project. Under this package, NT will distribute new mobile lines in the Central, Eastern, Far Western and Mid-Western development regions.

Huawei has also won the contract for Package B under which 4.8 million lines will be distributed to customers in the Kathmandu valley and the Western Development Region.

“We will be signing a contract with Huawei for 5.2 million lines soon,” said Guna Kesari Pradhan, NT spokesperson. Under this mega project, NT will have a capacity to distribute 5 million 2G lines, 4.5 million 3G lines and 500,000 4G service lines. As per the tender condition, the Chinese vendor will supply the telecom equipment, install it and make the NT network capable of adding 10 million new users by 2015.

The current system capacity of NT allows it to add only 5.5 million lines, but it has distributed 600,000 more lines than the upper limit. The company had long been planning to add capacity to cater to the growing demand from customers and compete with private sector operators like Ncell.

NT officials said that the project would help expand 3G service in a big way with customers slowly being attracted to mobile data service and the tariff rate coming down. They said that for expensive 3G enabled handsets and data service, NT had suffered a loss in the 3G service business in the early years. The company launched 3G service in 2007 and has been able to attract only 112,000 customers till date.

Earlier, NT had planned to implement the 10 million line project through two vendors by breaking it into two packages to ensure effective implementation and avoid dependency on a single vendor. However, with the other bidders ZTE Corporation and Ericsson refusing to accept Package A for cost reasons, NT had approached Huawei to do it.

In June, NT signed a contract with Huawei for Package B for Rs 6.74 billion (US$ 85 million). Pradhan said that Huawei had completed installation of the core network system and started work on installation of mobile towers for the 4.8 million lines. She added that the company planned to start distributing new mobile lines by mid-July 2013.

Source: The Kathmandu Post

NT decides to award contract for 5.2m GSM lines to Huawei

KATHMANDU, DEC 02, 2012

Nepal Telecom (NT) has decided to award ´Package A´ of its 10 million GSM lines project to Chinese telecom vendor Huawei.

The state-controlled telecom operator did not have any option other than approaching Huawei after the other two bidders cold-shouldered its offer. Still, NT took some time to award the contract to Huawei after some of its board members showed unwillingness to award the contract to install 5.2 million GSM lines to the Chinese vendor.

Huawei has already signed final agreement with NT to execute ´Package B´ of the project. As the lowest bidder, the Chinese firm had bagged the contract for Rs 6.75 billion.

"The board meeting on Wednesday finally decided to issue Letter of Intent to Huawei for the installation of 5.2 million GSM lines," said Pramod Gurung, one of the board members of NT. He told Republica that the board took the decision after two of the three vendors who participated in the bid rejected the offer.
Gunakeshari Pradhan, spokesperson of NT, said the operator would issue the Letter of Intent to Huawei shortly.

The bid for the ´Package A´ consisting of 5.2 million GSM lines was originally won by another Chinese vendor ZTE. But it later pulled out after NT turned down its request to raise the cost for implementing the project.

After seizing ZTE´s bid bond worth Rs 420 million, NT had offered the project to Ericsson. But the Swedish vendor, which had quoted the highest bid among three bidders, also cold shouldered NT´s offer.

Under ´Package A´, NT plans to distribute 2G, 3G and 4G lines in rural and hilly areas of central, eastern, far-western and mid-western development regions. Although it had targeted to complete the project by 2015, it is likely to be pushed back.

Similarly, under ´Package B´, NT targets to cover Bagmati, Gandaki, Dhaulagiri and Lumbini zones, mostly urban areas.

According to NT, the equipment delivery for many areas of the capital has been completed and installation has begun. NT is preparing to distribute new lines under this project by the end of current fiscal year.

Source: Republica

NT to distribute new mobile lines by July next year

KATHMANDU, Nov 27- 2012

Nepal Telecom (NT) is distributing the new mobile lines starting from the end of the current fiscal year.

While the delay in the implementation of the Package A (5.2 million GSM lines) continues, NT is gearing up for the timely completion of the Package B (4.8 million GSM lines) of the mega project of 10 million GSM lines to address the growing demand.

According to NT, the equipment delivery for many areas of the capital has been completed and installation has begun. “We will be able to distribute new lines by the end of the current fiscal year,” a senior official at NT said.

Chinese vendor Huawei had signed the agreement with NT about five months ago to supply and install the equipment, completing the project of 4.8 million GSM lines by mid-2014. As the lowest bidder, the vendor had bagged the contract for Rs 6.75 billion earlier this year.

Although the operator had invited tender for the mega project more than a year ago, it failed to start on time following the enquiries from Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) and later various legal and administrative continued to delay the implementation of remaining lines. As a result of the delay, NT is left with limited stock of SIM cards and shrinking marketshare.

After the completion of Package-B, NT will be capable of distributing lines in Bagmati, Dhualagir and Gandaki zone. “Currently we are issuing SIM cards by enhancing the existing networks as we are running out of stock. Unless we hand over the 5.2 million GSM lines to the vendor immediately, it will be very hard for us to manage the demand,” the official added.

Although ZTE had agreed to work on 5.2 million GSM lines, it later declined citing the high cost. The other bidder Ericsson also turned down NT´s offer. Although Huawei is positive about implementing the remaining lines, the NT board is yet to make final decision on this issue.

Pramod Gurung, one of the board members said, “We are aware about the consequences of the delay and are positive about handing over the project at the earliest.”

Source: Republica