Huawei, ZTE, TCS, TechM and eight others eyeing BSNL contract; buy EoI document ahead of pre-bid meet

 NEW DELHI: Around 12 Indian and multinational telecom vendors and IT services companies have shown interest in BSNL's tender for 57,000 sites nationally, including China's Huawei and ZTE, Financial Express reported.

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System integration and IT services providers Tech Mahindra, L&T and TCS have expressed their interest to participate in the tender by purchasing the expression of interest (EoI) document issued by BSNL on January 1.

European vendors Nokia and Ericsson US-based OpenRAN major Mavenir along with Indiam vendors Tejas Network, ITI, Sterlite Technologies and HFCL have also purchased the tender ahead of the pre-bid on January 11 with BSNL and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

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The state-run telco on January 1 issued the EoI for its 4G services, specifying that only Indian companies are allowed to provide the core network through a system integrator model.

BSNL will test the quality of telecom equipment from local vendors through PoCs.

“To ascertain the eligibility of bidders in the upcoming 4G tender of BSNL keeping in consideration the spirit of the ”Aatmanirbhar Bharat”…to promote indigenous manufacturing of telecom sector, BSNL invites proposal though …expression of interest for prior registration/proof of concept from Indian companies interested in participating in the BSNL”s upcoming 4G tender…” BSNL said in January 1 document.

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The participation by domestic companies, however, had become a contentious issue between the public sector telecom company, citing unproven technology and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) which advocated the inclusion of homegrown companies in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India campaign.

While foreign vendors like Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson can't bid for the 4G core BSNL, they can bid for the 4G RAN after depositing their source code in an escrow account.

"The escrowed version of the software shall be upgraded/updated regularly and will be the same as the version in the field,” BSNL’s EoI notice said.

As per the Indian government, the existing 2G and 3G network of BSNL has largely been built by Chinese vendors ZTE and Huawei. More than 44% mobile network equipment of state-run BSNL is sourced from ZTE, while 9% equipment from Huawei. Both will be barred from participating in the tender.

BSNL had to scrap the notice for tender, it originally rolled out on March 23, following the allegations of restrictive conditions by homegrown companies.