Nokia Signs USD24 Million GSM/GPRS Expansion Deal with IDEA Cellular

Nokia and IDEA have signed a USD24 million agreement for the supply of Nokia GSM/GPRS network equipment and multimedia services nationwide in India. With this deal, Nokia becomes the sole supplier of IDEAs GPRS network. Deliveries have begun and the project is scheduled for completion before the end of 2004. IDEA now operates in the 11 circles across India. Nokia will expand IDEAs GSM network for the Delhi and Andhra Pradesh circles, while extending the present GPRS core of Delhi to four circles - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Nokia has been working with IDEA since 1996, providing turnkey services for the operators GSM infrastructure over this period. Under the GSM/GPRS expansion deal, Nokia will supply the complete range of Nokia GSM/GPRS equipment such as Base Station Subsystems, Switching SubSystems, GPRS Core Network, Short Message Service System, Multimedia Messaging center expansion and Nokia download solution. They will also provide the Nokia Connect Site base station, which is part of the Nokia Connect GSM solution for new growth markets. Nokia is also providing an extensive set of services including IP planning support, network element installation & commissioning well as maintenance services.