State-owned telecom behemoth Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has approved Swedish telecom major Ericsson's request to implement Hewlett-Packard's disaster recovery solutions across two zones in the country.

This is contrary to the BSNL technical committee's earlier approval to use the DR solutions of US-based Sun Microsystems and EMC Corporation. According to vendors close to the development, HP's DR solutions were not mentioned in the original purchase order issued to Ericsson, the main bidder.

BSNL recently issued a letter to Ericsson (the main implementation partner), permitting it to use HP's DR solutions in the eastern and northern zones. For the western zone, BSNL may use ITI's (another state-owned company) solutions, but this could not be confirmed.

DR is the process of storing data (records and software) and other business processes in different geographical locations as a back-up in case the originals are lost to natural or human-induced disasters. In March 2006, BSNL had floated a tender inviting bids to implement DR sites in the northern, eastern and western zones of the country.

When contacted, Ericsson executives declined to comment, while executives of all other companies involved in the tender toed the line, fearing controversy. According to vendors, following the March 2006 tender, BSNL's technical committee approved the installation of Sun and EMC's storage solutions.

Later, in a letter dated April 18, 2008, to BSNL, Ericsson had sought permission to use HP solutions in the three zones, a move that was objected by Sun and EMC.