Ericsson snared a significant contract win from China Mobile to deploy TD-LTE equipment for the carrier in Hong Kong. China Mobile is currently the world’s largest wireless operator, having today said it ended the first half of the year with more than 683 million subscribers.
The deal builds on a current agreement that has Ericsson providing FDD-LTE equipment for the carrier in the market, with plans now to converge the two networks by upgrading the existing evolved packet core. The two companies also announced a deal last year to work on TD-LTE equipment.
Financial terms of the latest agreement were not released.
China Mobile is reportedly planning to launch the combined offering later this year, with the delay due to the need for devices supporting both TDD and FDD versions of the LTE standard. The carrier had previously launched FDD-LTE services in April.
China Mobile announced earlier this year plans to deploy more than 20,000 TD-LTE equipped base stations by the end of the year and that the carrier would then move to 200,000 such cell sites by the end of 2013. The carrier earlier this week reported a deepening of TD-LTE collaboration with domestic wireless operator Clearwire, which is looking to deploy a TDD-LTE network beginning next year.
Ericsson noted it will provide TD-LTE radio access equipment, network management using its OSS-RC offering, EPC network expansion and upgrade, consulting and systems integration services, and design, training and support services.
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