Alcatel Wins Chinese GSM Contracts

Alcatel has announced the signing of two contracts for a total of US$29 million with Shanxi Mobile Communication, a subsidiary of China Mobile. One of the contracts is the 11th GSM network expansion with this operator; the other is a GSM/GPRS network spares contract. The contracts were won through Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Alcatel's Chinese company. Under the terms of the network expansion contract, Alcatel will provide and install its Evolium GSM/EDGE solutions in seven major cities in Shanxi province, namely Yuncheng, Luliang, Linfeng, Jincheng, Changzhi, Xinzhou and Jinzhong.

In addition, Alcatel will provide GSM/GPRS network spares for existing network maintenance. Completion of the projects will extend mobile services to an additional 3 million subscribers in Shanxi.

Gao Buwen, General Manager of Shanxi Mobile, commented, "We have established stable and long-term relations with Alcatel since 1996. With Alcatel's state-of-the-art solutions, we are confident to meet the rapidly increasing demand of our customers by expanding the network capacity and delivering high-quality mobile services."

Figures from The Mobile World note that Shanxi Mobile Communication ended last year with just over 5 million subscribers. Rival operator, China Unicom finished with just under 4 million customers (combined GSM & CDMA)."

Posted to the site on 30th March 2006