Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) scored a 10-year, $1.1-billion deal to build a rural TD-LTE network for Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) as part of the government's $38-billion national broadband project for rural areas.
Interestingly, Ericsson will build and operate a fixed LTE network in the 2.3 GHz band that is expected to offer rural Australia downloads speeds of up to 12 Mbps and upload speeds at 1 Mbps.
"NBN Co will be offering rural and regional Australians the latest 4G wireless technologies as part of its fixed-wireless service," said Kevin Brown, acting chief executive officer of NBN. "Fixed wireless will allow us to plan a network for a more predictable number of users in a given area. This gives us greater control over speed and quality of service."
The deal calls for Ericsson to provide the LTE radio access, core and transmission. The vendor will also maintain the network end-to-end, including service activation, management and assurance as well as network performance and capacity management.
The network operations will transfer from Ericsson to NBN after the initial agreement with Ericsson is completed.
For more:
- see this Cellular-News article
- read this Reuters article
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