GP, Huawei sign $600m deal for network expansion

Naim-Ul-Karim | Published: June 02, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

The country's largest mobile operator Grameenphone, the Bangladesh subsidiary of Norwegian Telenor, has assigned the global telecommunications network solutions giant Huawei to develop its infrastructure at a cost of $600 million, a senior official said Sunday.

In this connection, the official said both the companies signed a deal in the capital recently.

Under the deal, the $17 billion Chinese telecom conglomerate will build a nationwide Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) soft switch core network and radio network of Grameenphone in high traffic areas of Bangladesh including Dhaka.

Zhang Hui (Tony), chief executive officer of the Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Ltd, said his company has already signed the contract with the Grameenphone.

"We are going to announce that it (Huawei) has signed a contract with Grameenphone," he said in a letter to this correspondent.

Huawei, world's second largest company after Swedish giant Ericsson, has arranged a function for formal announcement of its GSM contract with Grameenphone (tomorrow) Tuesday at a local hotel in the city.

A senior official of Huawei said: "We will complete the network development of the Grameenphone (GP) at a cost of $600 million under the deal by 2011."

Requesting anonymity, he further said the contract of Huawei, first time with any subsidiary of the world's seventh largest mobile operator Telenor, is renewable for a further two-year period until 2013.

When contacted, a senior official said strength of the country's leading mobile operator will be nearly double after Huawei completes the network development works in 2011.

"We have over 10,000 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) at around 6000 locations," Syed Yamin Bakht, a senior spokesman of GP, told the FE Sunday without disclosing anything about the contract with Huawei.

GP has so far invested more than $1.6 billion to build its network infrastructure since starting operation in 1997 in Bangladesh, according to information available at the mobile operator's website.

The operator has invested $450 million during the first three quarters of 2007 with $ 310 million invested in 2006 alone.

Presently, GP that brought nearly 98 per cent of the country's population under its coverage and employing more than 5,000 full, part-time and contractual employees, has around 18 million customers.