Alcatel-Lucent has strengthened its presence in China by striking new deals with existing customers China Mobile and China Telecom, worth a total of US$1.7 billion. Both deals cover “network upgrades, integration and maintenance services in 2009.” The agreements were secured through Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, the vendor’s Chinese unit. The China Mobile deal is worth US$1 billion alone and includes GSM/EDGE equipment as well as 3G TD-SCDMA kit. The China Mobile deal builds on a previous strong relationship. Last June the vendor announced another US$1B deal, whilst in December a consortium led by Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell and Datang Mobile won the largest share in China Mobile’s tender for the second phase of its TD-SCDMA mobile network trial.

Meanwhile, today’s China Telecom deal is worth US$700 million and will support deployment of the operator’s 3G network based on CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology. It follows an announcement last December that China Telecom had selected the vendor for a US$230 million upgrade of its 2G CDMA network. Alcatel-Lucent is also a key supplier to China Unicom, the country’s WCDMA operator. China Unicom recently selected Alcatel-Lucent to build 3G WCDMA networks in 14 Chinese provinces, totalling 11,000 base station deployments. Alcatel-Lucent is due to report its first-quarter results next Tuesday (5 May). Shareholders will be hoping it has been able to improve on eight consecutive quarterly losses.