Indian conglomerate Vindhya Telelinks has emerged as the winner of a contract to lay fibre optic cable across India for defence forces, beating out six other players with the lowest bid, according to Business Line.
The company, which led a consortium…
Indian conglomerate Vindhya Telelinks has emerged as the winner of a contract to lay fibre optic cable across India for defence forces, beating out six other players with the lowest bid, according to Business Line.
The company, which led a consortium including Aster & Telecommunications Consultants India, said it would charge Rs. 80bn (US$1.7bn) to lay the 57,000 kilometre-long cable project.
Other bidders included Sterlite, Aksh Optic Fibre and Teracom, wrote the Business Line. The newspaper explains that the bidding war resulted in the project cost coming down from about Rs. 100bn (US$2.1bn) to Rs. 80bn.
Under an agreement between the Ministry of Communications and the Defence Ministry, the defence forces will release spectrum of 25 Mhz of 3G and 15 Mhz of 2G airwaves for mobile phone operators once the project is finished.