Government-promoted telecom equipment major Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) is set to float a tender inviting foreign collaboration for manufacturing state-of-the-art telecom equipment. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, earlier this week, had cleared the proposal to revive the ailing telecom major.
ITI plans to foray into manufacturing Wireless Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) equipment, optical transmission and switching equipment, and IP core network systems. The company has initiated preliminary talks with a couple of Chinese equipment manufacturers towards this end.
The government-owned company, which supplies equipment to BSNL and MTNL, had an order book of Rs 8,900 crore in 2008 with the mobile segment contributing Rs 6,000 crore. ITI has a staff strength of 12,745 employees.