TMCnet News

United Kingdom : ERICSSON selected by Vodafone to build nations newest mobile service [TendersInfo (India)]
[August 21, 2014]

United Kingdom : ERICSSON selected by Vodafone to build nations newest mobile service [TendersInfo (India)]


(TendersInfo (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Vodafone Hutchison Australia has chosen Ericsson to build its new core network, in an attempt to create the nation s latest mobile service.

Swedish firm Ericsson under the deal will rebuild and virtualise Vodafone Australia s core network over the next 5 years. The deal is likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and follows a tender process.

Voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE), which includes running phone calls over mobile broadband networks, will be online by 2015. All mobile phone calls in Australia are at present done over 2G and 3G networks, whereas 4G is strictly reserved for data.



However VoLTE permits better quality calls to be done over 4G networks at a much cheaper cost while using less spectrum.

Vodafone Australia is substituting the patchwork core network created after its merger with Hutchison 3G Australia in 2009, which was not capable to manage the strain of new customers and led to an exodus of users from 2010 onwards.


The company has lost above 2 million customers over the past 2 years however the level of decline has slowed in recent months.

Vodafone Australia chief executive Inaki Berroeta told Fairfax Media: There are significant changes needed for the core now because of LTE and we re working on switches that can provide voice over LTE as well.

He added that Vodafone Australia had spent an average of $1 billion per year over the past three years.

He in addition said the introduction of VoLTE would not lead to a sharp reduction in phone call prices at Vodafone Australia because most plans already offered unlimited calls.

Mr Berroeta moreover blasted the payments being made by the government to Telstra for the use of its infrastructure in the national broadband network as outrageous while suggesting it could alter the market.

Ericsson is moreover Telstra s main supplier of mobile network technology.

(c) 2014 Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]