­Nepal Telecom is reported to have cancelled a network contract with Ericsson and is looking to award it to Huawei instead.

Citing a company official, local news media said that an order for 5.2 million GSM lines with Ericsson had been cancelled after Ericsson missed a deadline to sign the contract. A second contract awarded to Huawei for 4.8 million lines has been signed, and the Chinese vendor is now being offered the other half of the network expansion project as well.

The cancelled Ericsson contract had originally been offered to ZTE, but that company also pulled out of the deal which was for network expansion in the more rural and mountainous parts of the country.

In other news, the Nepalese government is moving ahead with plans to sell off a 30% stake in the mobile network. The sale is expected to be a single transaction to a strategic partner as opposed to a public offering of shares. The government currently owns 91.5% of the company, with the rest held by employees and a small 3.8% by the public.