ZTE plans to deploy hundreds of LTE base stations for Spanish operator, as well as fiber
MADRID – The Spanish subsidiary of Chinese vendor ZTE expects to deploy between 400 and 600 LTE base stations in Spain’s Basque region, according to Mariano Almagro, head of sales for ZTE Spain.
“The LTE contract with Euskaltel was initially signed during the first half of 2015,” Almagro told reporters. “The operator had acquired spectrum in the 2.6 GHz ban in order to start offering LTE services.”
Almagro said the Spanish telco was not looking at a massive deployment of LTE in its area of operation. “They wanted to deploy LTE technology in hot spots with high data traffic in the main cities such as Bilbao and San Sebastian in order to capture mobile traffic in those areas,” he added.
Euskaltel currently has approximately 450,000 LTE subscribers. “With the acquisition of cable TV operator R Cable, Euskaltel will add another 400,000 LTE subscribers,” Almagro said.
The executive said ZTE initially signed the first contract with Euskaltel in 2014. “We now have several contracts with Euskaltel,” Almagro explained. “We have a managed services contract, as well as additional deals to deploy radio technologies, optical transmission and IP Multimedia Subsystem.”
The executive also said ZTE Spain recently signed an agreement with local operator Masmovil for the deployment of fiber optic infrastructure across Spain. Under terms of the deal, the Chinese vendor will provide up to 27 million euros ($30.2 million) in financing for the operator’s deployment, which will partially cover the total cost of the program.
“This will be a nationwide fiber deployment, but at the initial phase of the project we will deploy the necessary infrastructure to pass approximately 500,000 homes across the country,” Almagro said, who noted most of the deployments will take place in approximately 26 small municipalities as the larger cities have already reached a saturation point in terms of fiber deployments.
“It will not be a good idea for Masmovil to deploy fiber infrastructure in a city like Madrid,” Almagro said. “The focus should be on the deployment of infrastructure in smaller cities where the telco will not face competition.”
Almagro said the telco’s goal is to reach 2.3 million homes with fiber optic. “We have just signed the phase one of the project, which is expected to last for two years and a half but we may sign additional contracts in the future.”
The executive also said ZTE had completed a fiber optic deployment for Jazztel. The contract with Jazzttel, which is now fully owned by mobile operator Orange, stipulated the deployment of fiber optic to pass 5 million homes.
