Alcatel-Lucent wins $1.7bn in Chinese 3G deals

Mega vendor Alcatel-Lucent said this week that it has scored infrastructure agreements worth $1.7bn from Chinese carriers China Mobile and China Telecom.

Under the agreements, Alcatel-Lucent will provide network upgrades, integration and maintenance services over the course of 2009. China Mobile and China Telecom were granted 3G licenses in January, to roll out TD-SCDMA and CDMA/EV-DO technologies respectively.

The deal, valued at approximately $1bn with China Mobile, will see Alcatel-Lucent provide GSM/EDGE infrastructure, TD-SCDMA kit, optical, microwave and IP transmission offerings, application platforms and related services.

The agreement with China Telecom, valued at approximately $700m, will see Alcatel-Lucent supply 3G CDMA/EV-DO networking equipment, application platforms, optical and IP transmission platforms and network maintenance services.

In January, the Chinese government finally awarded 3G licenses to the country’s three incumbent operators – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.

China Mobile will offer services using China’s homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, China Unicom will use WCDMA, and China Telecom will use EV-DO.

In December, the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that it expects spending on equipment by carriers to total US$41 billion over the next two years.