Indian BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) recently has awarded a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) contract to Swedish Ericsson and Chinese Huawei, the Hindu Business Line reported on May 11. The value of the contract deal is estimated to top US$6 billion. Under the contract, Ericsson and Huawei will help BSNL to deploy 93 million GSM lines, with Ericsson's coverage concentrating in northern and eastern India and Huawei's coverage concentrating in western, eastern, and southern India. Aside from Ericsson and Huawei, other companies who participated in the bidding process were ZTE, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel Lucent. The deal, however, is still pending approval by India's Ministry of Home Affairs due to security reasons, according to the same source.