Ericsson Expansions in China

With a potential customer base of 1.3 billion, telecom operators are now taking steps to further expand and boost China's communication infrastructure and related services. China Mobile and China Unicom today signed 2G/3G frame agreements with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC).

Living in the fastest-growing major economy in the world for the past 30 years, the Chinese have developed increasing technological needs. A steadily rising number of the Chinese population is going mobile. In 2009, there was an additional 106 million new mobile subscriptions, bringing it to a total of a 747 million. With a penetration rate of 56.3 percent, there are no signs of the market cooling down. The fixed broadband market also shows strong growth of about 20%, bringing it to a total of 103 million subscriptions at the end of 2009.

Today, 99 percent of the population has mobile coverage, thanks to operators' recent network expansion to rural areas. However, new additions and increased usage, especially with non-voice services, has put pressure on the networks and operators. Because of this, the operators are investing in maintaining quality and performance levels, especially in larger cities.

Mats H Olsson, Head of Ericsson Greater China, says: "The signing of the significant frame agreements is a manifestation of our continued strong cooperation with our Chinese customers. We are confident that we will do an even better job in supplying the latest technology and best-in-class services in time to support Chinese operators in fulfilling the demand of this tremendous market growth".

Under the agreement with China Mobile, Ericsson will provide a radio access network including a multi-standard radio base station RBS 6000 and mobile soft-switching technology, which will drastically boost the capacity of the network and evolve it into an IP network. With such solutions, Ericsson will also help China Mobile to achieve their energy saving goals. The framework contract is worth USD 1 billion and will be implemented during 2010.

In the agreement with China Unicom, Ericsson will provide a faster 3G network with HSPA Evolution technology to secure higher speed and better user experience for consumers. In addition, Ericsson will further expand cooperation with China Unicom in the area of IP and broadband, supplying IP routers, fiber access technologies GPON and 40G WDM as well as IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). The framework contract is worth USD 800 million and will also be implemented during 2010.

Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. 

Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 80,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 206.5 billion (USD 27.1 billion) in 2009. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.

Market Future:- HSPA+ and LTE

Key Facts:

• 451 million 3GPP mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide; 64 million in the Americas (Informa Telecoms & Media)
• 60 HSPA mobile broadband networks in 26 countries in the Americas
• HSPA 7.2 has been deployed coast-to-coast by AT&T, Rogers and T-Mobile in North America; backhaul upgrades are underway to realize the full potential of the fastest nationwide networks
• 31% of all mobile phones purchased in the United States during Q409 were smartphones, compared to only 23% in Q408 (NPD Group); 40% integrated device penetration by AT&T with wireless data traffic growth more than 5,000% over the past three years
• Average industry percentage contribution of data to overall average revenue per user in the U. S. was 29% at the end of 2009; mobile data will contribute at least 33% of the overall U.S. mobile service revenues by the end of 2010 (Chetan Sharma)
• HSPA+ has been deployed by Rogers across 41% of the Canadian population
• T-Mobile USA launched HSPA+ in Philadelphia with plans for broad national deployment in 2010
• T-Mobile USA’s webConnect Rocket™ USB Laptop Stick – the first HSPA+ device offered by a national U.S. carrier
• Operators are heavily investing in backhaul to cell sites to deliver maximum potential of HSPA and HSPA+ networks and to prepare for LTE
• TeliaSonera commercially launched LTE in Sweden and Norway in 2009; 20 commercial LTE networks are expected in 2010; 130 operators have expressed that LTE will be their future technology evolution (Informa Telecoms & Media)

Huawei Demonstrate LTE advanced 1.2Gb/sec

Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, today announced that it has achieved the world' s fastest LTE-advanced downlink speeds of up to 1.2 Gb/s at CTIA Wireless 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada

"Huawei' s LTE-advanced technology enables future development of LTE for operators and provides unparalleled mobile broadband experiences for consumers. The record speeds, which are more than 40 times faster than existing commercial 3G networks, are expected to revolutionize user experience by meeting bandwidth requirements of data-heavy applications," said Karen Yu, President of Huawei USA. "Huawei will continue to invest heavily in LTE and is committed to promoting industry developments and maturity."

The demonstration utilized Huawei' s industry-leading SingleRAN prototype LTE-advanced solution with 80 MHz multi-carrier wideband radio and included following features: carrier aggregation (CA), 4x4 multi-input multi-output (MIMO), coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP) and relay. Huawei' s SingleRAN solution supports network multi-mode convergence and evolution while reducing total cost of ownership for operators.

Huawei's end-to-end LTE solution provides an All-IP, high speed, low latency and highly spectrum efficient mobile network, which greatly enhances the experience of mobile multi-media services. As the world's leading LTE/SAE provider, Huawei has deployed more than 60 LTE networks including nine commercial networks.

Ericsson Report on Data Traffic Incrment.

Mobile data surpassed voice on a global basis during December of 2009, Ericsson announced today at the CTIA Wireless 2010 convention in Las Vegas. This finding is based on Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) measurements from live networks covering all regions of the world.

 

Ericsson's findings show that data traffic globally grew 280% during each of the last two years, and is forecast to double annually over the next five years. The crossover occurred at approximately 140,000 Terabytes per month in both voice and data traffic.  The data traffic increase is contributing to revenue growth for operators when more and more consumers use data traffic generating devices such as Smartphones and PCs. During the same period, Ericsson measurements show that traffic in 3G networks surpassed that of 2G networks.

 

"This is a significant milestone with some 400 million mobile broadband subscriptions now generating more data traffic than the voice traffic from the total 4.6 billion mobile  subscriptions around the world," said Hans Vestberg, Ericsson President and CEO, speaking at a management briefing in Las Vegas.

 

"Our view that the appeal of anywhere, anytime connectivity would drive mobile broadband growth is confirmed by the real world measurements under taken by Ericsson." 

 

Social networking sites on mobile devices and mobile broadband-based PCs now account for a large percentage of mobile data traffic. For example, over 200 mobile operators in 60 countries are deploying and promoting Facebook mobile products, with over 100 million active users accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

 

Supporting this view is a recent Ericsson consumer insights study showing that as much as 80% of mobile broadband users demand anytime, anywhere access. It has become part of daily life. The study was based on 4,580 consumers in six mature markets. It also finds that as mobile data traffic increases, the mobile broadband connection is becoming as personal as the mobile phone. 80% of respondents said they would not share their laptop with anyone and 65% would not share their mobile broadband connection. 

 

With the new consumer behavior mobile networks will need to be dimensioned for data as well as voice. This is expected to require significant network modernization and transformation to all-IP technologies and new support systems - areas where Ericsson is well positioned to help operators to benefit from these great opportunities.  

 

Notes to editors:

Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room: www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room

 

Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. 

 

Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 80,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 206.5 billion (USD 27.1 billion) in 2009. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.

Ericsson takes away major Airtel 3G deployment

The swedish-firm Ericsson has recently announced that the company has bagged the $1.3 billion contract from Bharti Airtel. The contract is believed to be the third major order that Ericsson has bagged over the past one week.
Under the terms of the contract, Ericsson will strengthen Bharti's GSM network in the 15 circles out of the total 22 that the company operates in.
Moreover, Ericsson will also ensure making the network of Bharti Airtel 3G ready on a real time basis. In fact, with the deal in place, it will really help the home-grown telecom operator to enable the fast rollout of 3G services at a later date.
Apart from this latest deal, World's largest telecom gears company, Ericsson recently bagged two orders from the Chinese telecom market - first being the $1 billion order from China Mobile and the $800 million contract from Chine Unicom, the two largest mobile operators operating in the Chinese market. The results of the 3G auction are expected to be out by the 9th of April in the Indian market.
Notably, Bharti recently signed a deal with the Kuwait-based Zain which will empower the Indian operator to take control of the latter's African operations.