Italy's second largest operator, Wind, has awarded Huawei a deal to develop and deploy HSPA+ and LTE networks. The agreement also calls for the Chinese equipment vendor to create a Joint Innovation Lab in Rome.
The contract will see Wind adopt Huawei's multi-standard platform SingleRAN technology to provide HSPA+ and LTE coverage for seven regions in Italy. The deal also includes SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy), a core network to enable the support of VoIP and other advanced services based on IMS.
Huawei confirmed that it will also be providing the entire project management, including the acquisition and construction of sites and the design of the network. This will include assisting Wind in improving the operator's ultra-wideband services via point-to-point technology.
Separately in more Huawei news, the Indian government has appointed independent examiners from the U.S., Canada and Israel to check that all telecoms equipment imported from China is free of spyware.
This new initiative comes after Indian authorities threatened to stop Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE, from selling equipment in India because of unlawful monitoring.
While Huawei has complained that India withheld contracts due to these unfounded security concerns, India's state-owned BSNL is thought to have excluded Huawei from a shortlist of suppliers to provide 3G infrastructure.
For more on this story:
- read TMC Net & Computer Weekly
Related stories:
Telenor picks Huawei for 4G upgrade, rejects Ericsson and NSN
Huawei demos LTE in Portugal
Huawei loses key Scandinavian LTE deployment deal, NSN benefits
Huawei threatens on many fronts