Bell Atlantic Corp. formed a joint wenture with the Bombay-based Essar Group to bid for basic and mobile telephone service licenses in India. Bell Atlantic will be a minority partner in the yet unnamed venture with a 33 percent stake. Essar, which has widespread interests in the cellular phone services, steel, shipping and oil industries, will hold a 67 percent stake. India’s Telecommunications Department recently issued eight Global System for Mobile communications technology-based licenses in order to privitize the country’s telecommunications sector, currently monopolized by the state. Nokia Corp., AT&T Corp., Sprint Corp. and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Co. reportedly are among those to have submitted sealed bids for basic service.
Korea Telecom initially has chosen the Time Division Multiple Access digital cellular standard for the personal communications services network it will launch in 1998. KT said it soon will embark on developing TDMA technologies for PCS switching to meet the government-set deadline, but second-stage efforts next year will focus on Code Division Multiple Access switching technologies. The company said CDMA powers over TDMA in terms of cell planning, frequency reuse and cellular capacity, but is still in the laboratory experimentation stage, while TDMA is being employed by 160 telecom operators around the world for PCS.
Stanilite Electronics Pty. Ltd. signed a contract with Papua New Guinea’s Post and Telikom Corp. to supply that country’s first mobile cellular telephone system. Under the contract, plans call for the Advanced Mobile Phone Service network to be officially launched Dec. 1, with six radio base station sites in Port Moresby and two in Lae, with a single digital switch controlling all eight radio sites. Post and Telikom is optimistic about signing up at least 2,000 subscribers in the first year of the network’s operation and hopes to expand coverage to other regional centers. Stanilite values the deal at more than $6 million.
L.M. Ericsson said it received several contracts for analog cellular telephone equipment in Russia. The contracts, valued at an estimated $22 million, include deliveries of Nordic Mobile Telephone 450i equipment to the Russian cities of Moscow, Kaliningrad, Vladivostok, Smolensk and Jekaterinburg. Ericsson said the installations will be completed this year. The Russian Ministry of Communications has chosen the NMT450i as the federal standard for analog mobile telephone systems in that country. Ericsson said the ministry has issued more than 40 NMT450i licenses with another 40 expected to be issued within the next two years.
Nokia Telecommunications signed a contract to supply its ACTIONET trunked mobile radio system to Northern Ireland’s Department of the Environment Water Executive. The system will provide mobile radio services for both voice and data over the whole province, Nokia said. The contract includes mobile exchanges, dispatcher terminals, 30 base stations and more than 1,000 mobile radio units. Nokia also will provide systems integration, installation and commissioning services. The company said the system will be completed by June 1996.
