Huawei wins $120 million order from Idea, Airtel: Source

New Delhi: Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies has bagged two contracts worth a combined $120 million from Bharti Airtel, India's leading operator, and Idea Cellular, the third largest, to upgrade their wireline networks, a person familiar with the development said on condition of anonymity.

Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have awarded contracts worth $60 million each to Huawei, the person said. Their networks will be enhanced to carry increasing data traffic.

"Telcos require bigger pipes, which can handle exponential data growth and video traffic. The solutions that Huawei is deploying can handle such data growth," he added.

The transformed backbone wireline network will help both companies to offer new, data-rich services to customers, the person said. "The deployment will also help the telcos to support their enterprise services and reduce operating expenditure," the person said.

Shenzen-based Huawei had signed a $150 million pan-India deal with Vodafone India to upgrade its wireline networks, ET reported recently. Huawei and Idea Cellular did not immediately respond to ET's queries, while Bharti Airtel declined to comment.

Wireline networks support wireless communications between mobile handsets and cell towers.

As smartphone sales surge, the telecom industry is seeing increasing use of data services, a trend that may strengthen with the addition of 4G technology, which offers faster download speeds. Analysts say backbone networks need to be beefed up to handle increasing data traffic.

Huawei recently secured a three-year contract from Bharti Airtel for supply of base stations and other equipment for its 4G network.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.