French telecom equipment maker Alcatel has won two
multi-million-dollar contracts from Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications
Corporation (VNPT), the company announced today. The exact value was not
disclosed.
The pacts were inked in conjunction with French President Jacques Chirac’s
visit to Hanoi this week. While there, he pledged support for Vietnam (a
former French colony) to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk is reportedly among a group of French executives
accompanying Chirac on a trip to Asia to try and expand trade with that
country.
Under the terms of the VNPT deals, Alcatel will deploy its switching system
to help it expand its wireline service in five provinces. The
work is expected to be completed by mid-2005.
Alcatel will also provide VNPT’s wireless subsidiary with the infrastructure
to expand network capacity in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to
prepare for wireless broadband data transmission.
“Alcatel will continue helping VNPT deploy truly convergent broadband
networks and deliver the right set of User-Centric Broadband applications to
end-users,” Pierre Cascarino, Alcatel’s chief representative in Vietnam,
said in a statement.
The agreements follow VNPT’s contract to deploy Alcatel’s Voice
over IP
Institute of Posts and Telecommunications (RIPT) in order to trial services.
Alcatel, which competes with Cisco , Nortel
, Lucent
and others, established a presence in
Vietnam in 1987 and has been working with VNPT since 1989, the company
said.