Bharti Tele-Ventures and Nokia

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Bharti Tele-Ventures, India's leading provider of telecommunications services has chosen Nokia to expand its managed GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks in eight circles for a contract worth USD 125 million. As per the contract, Nokia will provide managed services and expand Bharti's Airtel networks in the circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra (including Goa), Gujarat, Bihar (including Jharkhand) and Orissa over a three-year period. Additionally, Nokia has also been mandated to provide managed services and expand Airtel networks in the three other circles of Kolkata, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

Nokia's managed capacity expansion will further help Airtel cover more than 5,000 towns up from 2,700 across India. The phased expansion into these towns and villages starts immediately and is likely to be completed by March 2006. The expansion will double Bharti's network capacity, providing reduced congestion, seamless coverage and enhanced quality, to all Bharti customers. As part of the contract, Nokia will continuously deliver radio and core network equipment and services based on Bharti's capacity requirements, delivering a cost-efficient rollout of on-demand capacity.

Nokia will also be deploying its Connect GSM Solution for expanding network coverage in rural areas in a cost effective manner. This includes solutions for radio access, core network, network management systems and services that will reduce the total cost of ownership for Bharti and allow it to optimally target the low average revenue per user customer.

In 2004, Nokia had signed a USD 275 million contract with Bharti for supply of equipment for two years and for managed services for three years, across the five circles.

Nokia has contracted managed services with 34 clients in 28 countries, and has provided operating services for over 20 operators globally.

Bharti Tele-Ventures is one of India's leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with an aggregate of 13.76 million customers as of end of July '05, consisting of approximately 12.79 million mobile customers. The company is the only operator to provide mobile services in all the 23 circles in India. The company also provides telephone services and Internet access over DSL in 15 circles. The company complements its mobile, broadband & telephone services with national and international long distance services. The company also has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. The company provides reliable end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station.