Uninor which is eying a year-end launch of its GSM services in the country today awarded 2G GSM network rollout contract to Chinese teelcom gear manufacturer, ZTE for the circles of Dlehi, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

The contract is spread over five years.

 “We’re glad to be selected by Unitech Wireless to establish and manage their GSM infrastructure in India,” said Dr. D. K. Ghosh, Chairman & Managing Director, ZTE Telecom India Pvt Ltd. “This agreement not only marks our GSM network contract from a global telecom operator, but also provides us with an opportunity to establish and  manage GSM networks in metros and large cities. We are confident that opportunities like these will serve to further accelerate our growth momentum and expand our business footprint in the fastest growing telecom market in the world,” continued Dr. Ghosh.

ZTE says that its solution will allow Uninor to evolve its network infrastructure as required, thereby helping reduce network evolution cost, lower TCO and continuously enhance profitability.

Uninor appears to be adopting a multiple vendor approach for rollout of its GSM network. It has similarly awarded contracts to Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent and recently to NSN. With the ZTE contract, Uninor has till date awarded network rollout contracts in 14 out of its 22 licence areas.