Ericsson hints at push for DoCoMo LTE contract

Ericsson--which already has two major North American LTE contract wins from Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS--is hinting at additional contracts from the likes of Japan's NTT DoCoMo, according to a company executive.

In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Ericsson's head of radio networks, Ulf Ewaldsson, said that the vendor has several ongoing LTE trials with operators including DoCoMo. Additionally, he said that Chinese operators including China Mobile--which just began operating on the 3G TD-SCDMA standard this year--are also looking at LTE.

NTT DoCoMo has been one of the most aggressive operators on the LTE front besides Verizon. The company hopes to boost ARPU and profits by moving to LTE in the highly saturated Japanese market, and plans to differentiate itself by offering high-bandwidth video applications.  

Ericsson, which also has won an LTE contract with TeliaSonera, also has been rumored to be on a short list of vendors that AT&T is considering for its LTE deployments. The company has made leadership in the LTE space one of the centerpieces of its strategy in the equipment vendor market.

For more:
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article (sub. req.)

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