Alcatel-Lucent will roll out its 4G LTE overlay product to 13 of Telenor’s subsidiaries across Europe and Asia, after signing a deal with the Swedish operator.
The solution will be used instead of a traditional single RAN deployment, which Alcatel-Lucent claims is “significantly faster and less expensive” to deploy. The vendor said this will allow the subsidiaries to launch 4G on top of existing network equipment, without the need to spend time upgrading their infrastructures.
As part of the deal, the vendor will provide the Telenor subsidiaries with its 4G LTE Radio Access Network and 5620 Service Aware Manager.
Hilde Tonne, Executive Vice President, Group Industrial Development Telenor Group added: “We are very pleased with this agreement where Alcatel-Lucent are providing our subsidiaries with an attractive opportunity to forcefully adopt the rapidly evolving 4G LTE technology. This agreement directly supports our strategy for the coming years and will provide Telenor’s customers with the best possible customer experience delivered by the most efficient and robust network technology and architecture.”
Luis Martinez Amago, President Europe, Middle East and Africa of Alcatel-Lucent said: “This agreement clears the path for us to enter negotiations on our 4G LTE overlay solution with Telenor’s subsidiaries throughout Europe and Asia, and follows a number of other major agreements we have made with Telenor over the last few years which have included small cells, IP transport and mobile video product solutions.”
The transition to 4G LTE is happening much quicker than that of 3G. According to figures from the GSMA, there were 230 LTE networks across 88 countries towards the end of last year. It is predicting there will be one billion LTE connections by 2017, with 465 LTE networks offering the service across 128 countries.
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