Alcatel-Lucent said on Monday it has won a contract to extend the LTE network of United Arab Emirates-based operator Etisalat in an expansion of an existing relationship between the two companies that began in December 2011.
Financial conditions of the deal were not revealed, but Alcatel-Lucent said the network would allow Etisalat to extend its network coverage, and also offer advanced cloud services and LTE Broadcast services based on evolved Multimedia Broadcast Muliticast Service (eMBMS) in 2014.
Alcatel-Lucent said its technology would support Etisalat's plan to cover 99 per cent of populated areas in the UAE with LTE-FDD services by 2015, including buildings, shopping malls, stadiums, airports and other densely populated areas.
Etisalat currently offers large-screen LTE services under My DataPlan packages through LTE USB modems and LTE mobile Wi-Fi devices. It also markets LTE devices such as the iPhone 5c and Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.
"This additional business collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent will enable our customers in the UAE to continue to experience cutting-edge broadband connectivity in terms of mobile broadband internet access, mobile TV applications, video streaming and video calls," said Haitham Abdulrazzak, CTO of Etisalat UAE. "This expanded relationship with Alcatel-Lucent supports our goal of making Etisalat one of the world's top five operators in ultra-broadband speed."
Etisalat has operations in 15 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Alcatel-Lucent claimed that the new agreement with Etisalat "underscores the progress of The Shift Plan, the industrial strategy to reposition Alcatel-Lucent as a specialist vendor of IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access".
This streamlining programme saw the company deliver its first quarterly profit in two years in the final three months of 2013.
For more:
- see this Alcatel-Lucent release
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