L.M. Ericsson said it was selected by Austrian wireless carrier One as the sole supplier for its UMTS radio access network. The contract has a value of up to $193.3 million. The Swedish supplier will deliver radio base stations and supplementary equipment for the nationwide third-generation network in Austria. Deliveries will begin immediately, Ericsson said.
CHINA
UTStarcom Inc. said it has won a $75 million contract to expand the deployment of its IP-based personal access system on China Netcom’s network in Hebei Province. The vendor said Netcom is expanding its infrastructure to 11 Chinese cities and the network to 30 counties. “There are nearly 2 million iPAS subscribers in Hebei,” said Johnny Chou, president and chief operating officer of UTStarcom China. “Subscribers continue to be attracted by UTStarcom’s extensive value-added service platform, which offers users short messaging, multimedia messaging and C-MODE-based Web browsing and wireless Internet access.”
RUSSIA
Siemens AG said ZAO Smarts, the fourth-largest mobile carrier in Russia, has contracted the German vendor to deliver equipment valued at $36.4 million. The order includes GSM technology, microwave systems and GPRS network elements for the SMARTS subsidiary in central and southwestern Russia. The equipment will benefit more than 500,000 mobile subscribers by the end of 2004, Siemens said.
CANADA
Info Touch Technologies Corp. announced Mac’s Convenience Stores Inc. will deploy Info Touch kiosks in 34 Vancouver-area stores. Info Touch’s kiosks offer applications including Wi-Fi; bill payment; mobile content like ring tones, graphics and games; and prepaid wireless. In addition, they provide long distance, money orders and money transfers. Mac’s is a subsidiary of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which has deployed Info Touch kiosks in Circle K stores in the United States.
