“CDMA is at the heart of networks deployed by some of the world’s largest operators, providing voice, data, and video to millions of consumers,” said Richard Lowe, president Carrier Networks, Nortel. “We’re delighted to be working with CTC as it rolls out its next-generation network and look forward to a long, successful relationship. In China, Nortel has over 35 years of experience helping operators deliver exceptional service quality and has made China a strategic focus with significant manufacturing, R&D and service capabilities.”

CTC’s expanded network will provide improved voice service and mobile multimedia applications – including Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, picture messaging, gaming and advanced data services – to a rapidly expanding customer base.

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- Huawei received 30% or the orders, securing contracts for the cities of Guangzhou, Xiamen, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, and Foshan

- Alcatel-Lucent secured 20% but failed in Guangdong.

- ZTE received around 15%

- Motorola took 18% winning contracts in Shenzhen, Huizhou, and Dongguan.

- Nortel won a 17%

- Samsung lost out to other network equipment manufacturers everywhere but in Shijiazhuang.

Source: Marbridge Consulting

More: Bloomberg has a story that Huawei has won 20% of the China Telecom business for new base stations.

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“Like consumers all over the world, ACS customers want to run bandwidth-intensive applications like Internet video, social networking sites, and advanced business services,” Philippe Morin, president of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks, said in a statement. “Nortel’s 40G/100G solution allows ACS to cost-effectively deliver the capacity to meet these needs in a unique geographic environment, over various qualities of fiber and across long distances.”

Last week, Nortel unveiled a deal to provide 40G optical technology to Bell Canada.

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For people who followed Nortel’s financial troubles/accounting scandal, Deloitte was right in the middle of the action as Nortel’s long-time auditor. As Nortel toiled away on a series of restatements, Deloitte made big-time fees – $72.7-million in 2003 and $57-million in 2004 for audit, tax and related services.

In December 2006, Nortel parted ways with Deloitte, and Nortel selected KPMG as its new auditor. Nortel said the decision was not a result of “any disagreement or dissatisfaction” with Deloitte.

Now, it may be that Nortel has the best managed services portfolio at the best prices to meet Deloitte’s specific needs but if Deloitte was taking optics into account, perhaps going with a supplier other than Nortel may have been a more pragmatic choice.

For more, check out Network World’s Jim Duffy.

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The wireless carrier is going to replace all of its Nortel GSM and UMTS base stations with new equipment from Huawei and Nokia Siemens.

Unstrung reports this is Nortel’s second loss in Germany to Huawei following T-Mobile’s decision to use Huawei’s Packet Switched Core Networks technology in several markets.

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Nevertheless, Nortel is taking another shot at getting a bigger foothold in the oh-so-large but oh-so-competitive Indian telecom equipment market by taking on a $100-million deal to supply BSNL with GSM lines.

“India represents an enormous opportunity for Nortel in the carrier space, with its consistently high growth rates and increasingly mobile population,” said Richard Lowe, president of Nortel’s carrier networks division. “We have redesigned our GSM portfolio with this kind of opportunity in mind, making our solution much more cost competitive, without compromising the performance, capacity and coverage.”

Last September, Ericsson was a $1.3-billion contract to supply BSNL with 13.1 million wireless lines but Ericsson and Nokia-Siemens, which had the second-lowest bid, passed on the other 9.9 million lines.

Nortel’s earlier foray into India was driven by ex-CEO Bill Owens. The contract was worth about $500-million but it soon became apparent it was going to be a major loss-leader for Nortel. When Gary Daichendt was hired as COO in 2006, he battled with Owens to get out of India but lost that argument and, shortly afterward, resigned.

Technorati Tags: BSNL, India

It’s not an acquisition but a contract that Intercontinental Hotels Group announced earlier this week with Cisco and Nortel to provide telecom and networking technology in its hotels in the MIddle East and Africa.

Cisco will provide its Hospitality Solutions technology to offer hotel guests connectivity through IHG’s hotels, while Nortel will be installing a VoIP network, IP phones, data networking equipment and other network equipment.

“The idea behind us being aligned with two vendors is to give our owners the choice,” said Ali Saeb, director of IT at IHG, Middle East and Africa. “The main challenge for us in enhancing the guest experience is having the right equipment. When we have an agreement in place, we have the luxury of getting more and paying less.”

IHG, which owns the Holiday Inn chain, currently operates 74 properties across the Middle East and Africa region, and has plans to double this number by the end of 2010.

It could be in light of the fact Nortel has won a $39-million contract to provide more program management services to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services over the next four years.
This is expected to help make USCIS more flexible and cost-effective in carrying out its mandate by augmenting USCIS staff with highly-skilled program management specialists.

“Two decades of providing IT management and support services to this and other Homeland Security agencies have given us a wealth of legacy knowledge and experience that helps us to support their critical missions,” said Chuck Saffell, who heads up Nortel Government Solutions. “We are very pleased USCIS has chosen to expand our supporting role with them.”

It might also help that Mike Zafirovski was nominated last month by President Bush to sit onthe National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

For all the fiber installed during the dot-com boom and the suggestions much of it is still unlit, there is little doubt demand from optical equipment is coming back as consumers demand bigger pipes to send and receive data-hungry services such as video and IP-TV.

As Tom Buttermore, general manager, cable solutions with Nortel, said in the press release: “The consumer appetite for real-time services has never been higher, placing a heavy toll on networks that deliver everything from voice and data to video-on-demand”.

In any event, Nortel is going to lead the replacement of the SSA’s global telephone system with IP technology to created a converged data and voice network. It’s a huge undertaking given the SSA has 1,600 field office and 55,000 customer service agents.

This is the first major U.S. government contract for Nortel in a long, long time. The company has hoped to carve out more U.S. business with the purchase of PEC Solutions Inc. for $448-million. Then again, it’s difficult to tell how well Nortel is doing in this area given it doesn’t provide much “colour” within its financial statements in terms of where sales are generated.