Spanish operator Telefónica will use equipment from manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent for pilot networks based on LTE, the Franco-US vendor has confirmed. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The announcement follows reports in the Spanish media last week that Vodafone and Telefónica are set to launch pre-commercial LTE services this month aimed at providing high-speed data services to government subscribers and large enterprise customers. Alcatel-Lucent said the pre-commercial pilot LTE networks in Madrid and Barcelona will enable Telefónica to test different applications and services that can take advantage of the faster LTE connections.
As part of the project, Alcatel-Lucent will provide Telefónica with a complete, end-to-end LTE solution, including LTE base stations, an all-IP wireless Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and subscriber data management capabilities via IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Alcatel-Lucent also will build, operate and maintain the network on Telefónica's behalf.
Telefónica, Orange Spain and Vodafone won spectrum for LTE services in an auction this July. Telefónica confirmed that it made winning bids for five frequency blocks that would cost the company €668.3 million with licences that would run until 2030. The bands acquired were in the 800MHz, 900MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum.
For more:
- see this press release
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