Nepal Telecom 10 million mobile lines project: Ericsson rejects Package A

KATHMANDU, SEP 26 -

Swedish telecom system vendor Ericsson has denied to undertake the package A of Nepal Telecom ’s (NT) 10 million GSM lines project.

On September 11, NT had given Ericsson a 15-day deadline for signing an agreement to carry out the package A for adding 5.2 million mobile lines. The deadline ended Tuesday.

Now, NT is preparing to ask Huawei Technologies to undertake the package. NT plans to formally issue a letter of intent to Huawei soon. Guna Keshari Shrestha, spokesperson for NT, said they did not receive any notification from Ericsson until Tuesday. “The next step on the package will be decided on Wedne-sday after holding a meeting,” she said.

On September 3, Ericsson had informed NT in written it would not be able to accept the package at the price quoted by Huawei.

With both ZTE Corporation and Ericsson refusing to accept the package A, Huawei has to accept it as per NT’s tender condition. “We are hopeful Huawei will not disappoint us rejecting the package at the same cost it had quoted,” a high-level NT official said.

Huawei has also extended the bid security validity deadline until October 19, 2012, indicating that it could work on that project.

The 10 million lines project is being executed under two packages — A and B. The package A is targeted for the eastern, mid- and far-western regions and the central region outside the Kathmandu Valley. Huawei had proposed to carry out package A at $122 million.

Being the lowest bidder for the package B too, Huawei has already signed an agreement with NT for this package at Rs 6.74 billion. Package B — adding 4.8 million mobile lines to NT’s network — is targeted for the Kathmandu valley and the western development region.

Source: The Kathmandu Post