Weekly infrastructure awards wrap-up

The following list details this week’s infrastructure awards for the cellular, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX industries. The contracts are broken down by transmission technology, country and vendor. The value of the contract is included when available.

Cellular

• Austria: L.M. Ericsson signed a contract to supply HSDPA hardware and software to members of the Mobilkom Austria Group to expand their third-generation services to include multimedia functionality.

• Bangladesh: Warid Telecommunications Pvt. Ltd. selected L.M. Ericsson to build the carrier’s GSM/GPRS network, including complete core and transmission equipment, as well as part of the radio network. The contract also includes Ericsson’s Mobile Softswitch Solution and Media Gateway. Ericsson also won a contract from GrameenPhone Ltd. to expand its GSM/EDGE network and prepare its core network to transition to all IP. The contract is valued at $150 million.

• Canada: Rogers Communications Inc. selected L.M. Ericsson as its exclusive supplier of next-generation HSDPA voice and data network equipment, including packet core and radio network solutions. The network is scheduled to launch this fall.

• China: Nokia Corp. said it won a GSM/GPRS network expansion contract with Henan Mobile Communications Corp. Ltd. The $170 million contract calls for Nokia to supply core and radio equipment, network planning, optimization and rollout services.

• Namibia: Mobile Telecommunications Ltd., Namibia’s only cellular operator, signed a five-year exclusive agreement with Motorola Inc. for GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile and Canopy wireless broadband access equipment. The carrier said the equipment will allow it to reach 95 percent of its population.

• Philippines: Sun Cellular awarded L.M. Ericsson a contract to supply its mobile softswitch solution and base station subsystem equipment for the carrier’s GSM expansion in the Visayas and Mindanao region.

• United States: Cingular Wireless signed and expanded deals with three vendors. The company signed a three-year contract with Nortel Networks under which Nortel will provide its 2G/3G 3GPP Release 4 compliant mobile switching center server and media gateway products to support the carrier’s UMTS/HSDPA network deployment. Cingular also expanded a contract with Lucent Technologies Inc. to include third-generation UMTS equipment, including radio access networking and core switching solutions. The agreement builds on a deal signed in November 2004. Finally, Cingular awarded a contract with L.M. Ericsson to supply UMTS/HSDPA packet core and radio network equipment for its 3G network buildout.

• Worldwide: Cable & Wireless selected Nokia to supply GSM and W-CDMA 3G radio and core network equipment under an international frame agreement.

Miscellaneous

• Australia: SingTel Optus deployed Azaire Networks’ IP Converged Network Platform to integrate wireless local area network technology with third-generation services.

• Europe: T-Mobile International extended an agreement with Lucent Technologies Inc. for its network analysis and optimization service. The service focuses on improving end-to-end performance of T-Mobile’s UMTS networks in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Lucent will also service T-Mobile’s HSDPA networks when they launch. Also in Europe, Alcatel said it will supply a fully integrated interactive mobile TV solution to T-Mobile International.

• Indonesia: Nokia said it has won a contract with PT Hutchison CP Telecommunications to supply a convergent charging solution that will cover call control functions and integrate with the carrier’s other business systems for prepaid and postpaid customers. The integrated system will handle both second-generation and third-generation customers.

• Pakistan: Orascom Pakistan (Mobilink) signed a deal with Motorola Inc. calling for the vendor to replace its existing home location register with Motorola’s HLR server.

• Spain: Motorola Inc. said it is supplying a Push-To-Talk over Cellular handset and server solution to Vodafone Spain.

• United Kingdom: O2 UK selected Tatara Systems to supply its Mobile Services Convergence Platform for use in GPRS, 3G and wireless local area network applications. Also in the United Kingdom, Vodafone has selected Apertio to incorporate its One-NDS network directory server into Vodafone’s core network.

• Worldwide: Vodafone Group plc selected Nokia Corp. and L.M. Ericsson to supply Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem technologies. Nokia will supply its IMS network architecture and Session Initiation Protocol technology to Vodafone affiliates worldwide, while Ericsson will supply its IMS system, support and integration services for Vodafone’s evolution to an all IP network. Ericsson’s deployments will begin in Japan.