
On January 12, state-run Indian Telephone Industries Limited (ITI) floated a request for proposal (RFP) inviting competitive commercial offers from domestic companies to jointly bid for BSNL’s 4G equipment supplies.
According to our sources, we have learnt that ITI has shortlisted Mavenir Systems for the contract of BSNL’s 4G rollout. Mavenir Systems has won because of its technology and the costing they provided.
“Yes, we participated in ITI’s open RFP invited for the selection of technology partners who own the technology, meet all technical conditions of BSNL’s 4G EoI and ready to Transfer Technology to ITI to enable them to manufacture the radio equipment locally in their plants,” a Mavenir spokesperson told Economic Times.
The spokesperson also said that Mavenir offered “best competitive financial bid”.
The state-run firm ITI has been looking to supply next-generation telecom equipment to the BSNL in line with the Centre Government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative that aims to reduce the country’s dependency on imports.
Companies competing for BSNL’s 4G supply include Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson, Mavenir Systems as well as Indian companies such as HFCL Limited, Tejas Networks, Sterlite Technologies, Polycab India, and large system integrators such as L&T and HCL, in addition to state-owned Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) and ITI Limited.
ITI has not responded to the query sent via email but the official announcement will follow soon.