China's Huawei to bid for BSNL tender

Huawei plans to bid for BSNL's mega cellular tender of 60 mn GSM lines, and is exploring partnerships with local partners.

Undeterred by reneging of a CDMA contract with BSNL, Chinese telecom equipment vendor Huawei Technologies said on Tuesday that it would bid for the mega BSNL cellular tender of 60 million GSM lines for which it is exploring partnerships with local partners.

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"We will bid for BSNL's GSM tender of 60 million lines including 3G. BSNL is a strategic and valued customer for us. For this we cannot partner with the current local partner HFCL as it is a CDMA-based service provider. We are exploring cooperation from local public and private partners," global spokesperson for Huawei Technologies Fu Jun said.

Jun did not reveal the name of the companies Huawei is talking to. Asked whether the company is talking to Motorola for the same, he said: "Motorola is a long-term partner".

The eight billion dollar Chinese company is eagerly awaiting Government approval for its manufacturing plans. To bid for any BSNL and MTNL tenders, the bidders need to have local manufacturing base. In case of Huawei, even as Department of Telecom has in-principle given its nod for the plan, Shenzen-based company is allegedly mired in controversy with regard to "strategic concern" raised by intelligent agencies in India.

Jun is confident that the Foreign Investment Board of India approval for its manufacturing plans would come and said the company is ready to face any question over this.

"We are a market-oriented company. Even if we are privately-held company, our management is of global standard.. We are transparent to Governments.. If they have enquiries about us, we are ready to face them. But nobody has approached us so far. Last May, we had suo moto given information to Indian Government," Fu asserts.