In its drive to expand telecom services both in mobile and fixed line segments, Bharti Airtel awarded a $900 million contract to Nokia Siemens to deploy equipments in various circles in which it operates.

The two-year GSM expansion programme will cover the company's eight existing circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand, Orissa, Kolkata and West Bengal, where Nokia Siemens Networks already provides equipment and managed services.

Commenting on the partnership, Manoj Kohli, president and CEO, Bharti Airtel, said "Bharti Airtel is undertaking a massive expansion and integration exercise across its mobile and fixed networks to significantly augment its service delivery capacity. Today's comprehensive network expansion contract is a reflection of this vision."

For the two-year fixed network expansion, Nokia Siemens will deploy 1.8 million Next Generation Networks ports across Airtel's National Long Distance and International Long Distance networks.