Nokia Siemens hopes to seal deal with BWA Holders soon

Nokia Siemens Networks is expected to close deals with Indian companies that have wireless broadband airwaves as early as next month. All the leading global gear makers, including NSN's competitors such as Huawei and Ericsson, have been in talks with the six companies that won broadband wireless airwaves in an auction last year for supplying equipment on the long-term evolution, or LTE, technological platform.

With permit holders, including Reliance Industries and Qualcomm, preparing to launch high-speed data services by the end of this year, NSN expects talks and field trials to culminate into sales over July-September quarter.

"Discussions have been going on since the middle of last year and we are now close to ending the cycle. We are in different phases of maturity with different operators. Early Q3, we will see one of the first deals to be signed," said NSN's head of global LTE sales Mark Atkinson.

Atkinson did not reveal the potential size of the deals but analysts tracking the telecom sector developments said operators could pay anywhere from $250 million to $4 billion for a single contract. "The deal size can vary, depending on the number of circles held by a service provider, rollout obligation and what kind of equipment is being bought," said KPMG's telecom head Romal Shetty.

In order to facilitate of data services, NSN will leverage Motorola's expertise and launch USB dongles or data cards between July and September this year at a price of more than $100. NSN had recently completed the acquisition of Motorola's network businesses.

Infotel won BWA licences of all 22 circles across India, while Aircel won eight, Bharti Airtel and Qualcomm won in four circles, Delhi-based Tikona in five and UK-based Augere in one circle.