Alcatel (ALA) has signed deals with Shanxi Mobile worth Euro 24 million for telecommunications expansion in the Chinese province.

One of the contracts is the eleventh GSM network expansion for Shanxi Mobile and the other is a GSM/GPRS network spares contract.

Under the terms of the network expansion contract, Alcatel will provide and install its Evolium GSM/EDGE solutions including Base Stations (BTS), Base Station Controllers (BSC), Transcoder (TC), Multi-BSS Fast Packet Server (MFS) supporting the Packet Control Unit (PCU) functions, and Operation and Maintenance Center for Radio (OMC-R), in seven major cities in Shanxi province, namely Yuncheng, Luliang, Linfeng, Jincheng, Changzhi, Xinzhou and Jinzhong.

In addition, Alcatel will provide GSM/GPRS network spares for existing network maintenance. Completion of the projects will extend mobile services to an additional 3 million subscribers in Shanxi.

Gao Buwen, General Manager of Shanxi Mobile, commented, "We have established stable and long-term relations with Alcatel since 1996. With Alcatel's state-of-the-art solutions, we are confident to meet the rapidly increasing demand of our customers by expanding the network capacity and delivering high-quality mobile services."