The Huawei-China Mobile deal also stipulates the deployment of NFV technology
China Mobile Hong Kong and Huawei Hong Kong have inked a strategic partnership for the deployment of a LTE-Advanced Pro network.
Under the terms of the deal, the telco’s existing TD-LTE/LTE FDD converged network will be fully upgraded to a “4.5G” network.
“We are very pleased to work with Huawei to upgrade our 4G mobile network to 4.5G for significant network capacity optimization and speed improvement, as well as achieving superior user experience for consumers and commercial customers,” China Mobile Hong Kong’s CEO, Sean Lee, said.
“Our partnership with Huawei Hong Kong not only upgrades our existing 4G network to 4.5G, but also offers customers unparalleled service of higher speed and lower latency through the introduction of network function virtualization enabling a more advanced mobile communication experience.”
The new deployment will allow the operator to expand its enterprise and industry customer base, Zou Zhilei, Huawei’s carrier business group president, said.
In October 2015, 3GPP officially named LTE-Advanced Pro as the new LTE standard, which also is the official name of 4.5G.
China Mobile reached more than 466 million LTE subscribers at the end of August
In other APAC news, China Mobile ended August with 466.6 million LTE subscribers, according to the mobile operator’s latest available figures. China Mobile counted 840.8 million total mobile subscribers at the end of the month.
China Mobile initially kicked off its 4G LTE network in December 2013 and currently offers the technology through spectrum in the 1900MHz, 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz bands.
Rival operator China Telecom ended August with 210.5 million mobile subscribers, at which time the operator counted 101.4 million LTE terminal users.
China Telecom is currently offering LTE services using spectrum in the 1800MHz, 2.1GHz, 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz bands.
Meanwhile, China Unicom ended August with 261.5 million subscribers including 82.8 million on its LTE network. The telco initially launched commercial LTE services in March 2015 using the 1800MHz, 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz bands.
