Nortel vice-president Rajan Mehta (right) and BSNL general manager Chinmay Mitra in Calcutta on Friday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, March 3: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) envisages an investment of $6 billion when the third generation (3G) network is rolled out as the company expects its user base to surge to 60 million in the next three years.

Moreover, BSNL has awarded Nortel Networks (India) Pvt Ltd the project to upgrade and install seven million connections in the global system for mobile communications network in the southern and eastern zones.

“Our upgradation exercise with Nortel will involve a state-of-the-art network with data-enriched switches and the entire network would be data-enabled so that the transition to the 3G network is smooth and gradual. The network should be able to support the entire range of 2.5G and 3G combined,” said Chinmay Mitra, general manager-task force and mobile, BSNL, West Bengal telecom circle.

The 60-million capacity build-up within three years would entail an average cost of $100 per customer in equipment charges and hence the total amount of $6 billion, said Mitra.

The eastern region would require a little less than one-fourth of the total amount.

“This GSM project is the largest one handled by Nortel globally. The eastern region would entail 3 million connections through the GSM network, of which seven lakh alone would be in Bengal,” said Rajan Mehta, vice-president, Nortel Networks (India) Private Limited.

Around 3 lakh connections have already been sold in the state since inception in the later half of last year. The contract for the eastern region is valued at $200 million.

Since November 15 till March 2, more than 650 base transciever stations (BTS) have been added and the figure is expected to go up to 1100 in the next two months. The total number of BSNL BTS currently stands at more than 760.

“We had started with connecting district headquarters and moved on to block levels. Of the 341 blocks in the state, around 250 to 260 have already been covered and the next step involves villages with a population of more than 5000,” Mitra added. All such villages would be covered by 2007.

“This project has been a landmark of sorts for Nortel with myriad challenges like using transportation modes like helicopters to mules and even physically transporting the equipment in far-flung areas like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to elevations of 10,000 feet above sea level in Sikkim,” Mehta said.

Since the inception of mobile telephony in India in 1995 till 2003, a little over 10000 BTS had been built across the country. “This project aims at building the same number of BTS in nine months,” Mehta said.