Canadian telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks has secured US$136 million in contracts to provide wireless network equipment to China Mobile and Ningbo Unicom.
The bulk of the orders will be used to help China Mobile, the country's largest wireless provider, expand GSM 900/1800 dual-band cellular networks in Hebei, Anhui and Guizhou provinces.
Hebei intends to increase its subscriber capacity by one million to five million users, while Anhui will lift its network capacity by 140,000 to 300,000 subscribers, and Guizhou will boost its network by 330,000 to 930,000.
The expanded networks are scheduled to be in service by September, Nortel said.
Meanwhile, Ningbo Unicom is to buy US$31 million in Nortel equipment to expand its network by 350,000 subscribers to 910,000 by October.
The contract announcements come as the Canadian company said it would start laying-off workers as part of a larger corporate restructuring, following its first quarter loss of US$2.6 billion.