Telecom Lead America: Huawei, which recently won its
first LTE deal in India from Airtel, has missed a big opportunity to sign up
with T-Mobile USA.
T-Mobile USA has selected European equipment vendors such
as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks to expand its HSPA+ service and
construct its new LTE network.
With this, major LTE equipment vendors – Huawei, ZTE,
Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, NEC, Samsung and Fujitsu – lost opportunity to work in
the top LTE market along with a wireless major.
Ericsson and Nokia Siemens will roll out equipment
compatible with LTE-Advanced Release 10 at 37,000 cell sites as part of the $4
billion project.
Ericsson and Nokia Siemens are two top LTE vendors in Q4 2011
T-Mobile said it expects to be the first North American
operator to deploy antenna integrated radios designed to speed up construction
of the network and address site loading.
With these partners on board and the AT&T AWS
spectrum secured, we’re on track to enhance our 4G experience this year and
deliver nationwide LTE in 2013,” T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville
Ray said in a statement.
The LTE service will go live in 2013 and uses AT&T
AWS spectrum handed over to T-Mobile as part of the breakup fee from the failed
merger.
The licenses, transferred to T-Mobile last week, give it
up to 20 MHz of spectrum for its LTE network in three-quarters of its top 25
markets. Most of its remaining market will run on 10 MHz of spectrum.
T-Mobile is in the process of refarming some of its 1900
MHz PCS spectrum for continued expansions of its HSPA+ service. The operator
said will launch HSPA+ in a large number of additional markets by the end of
this year.
“Rolling out 4G HSPA+ services in the 1900 MHz band
will also provide customers with the ability to use a broader range of devices,
including the iPhone, on T-Mobile’s 4G network,” it said.
Trials of its network modernization project indicated a
33 percent increase in HSPA+ data speeds and improve in-building coverage, the
operator said. Its HSPA+ network currently covers more than 220 million people.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile lit up its HSPA+ service in
Hattiesburg, Miss., and Madison, Wis., and turned on its dual-carrier HSPA+
network in Fayetteville and Little Rock, Ark.; Lake Charles, La., and
Springfield, Mo.
In America, Chinese equipment makers including Huawei and
ZTE are battling for their dominance.
Huawei faces more issues in American telecom market
Recently, a congressional panel has given the green
signal to a measure designed to search and clear the U.S. nuclear-weapons
complex of technology produced by Chinese telecom equipment makers that have
been accused of working closely with China’s government and military.
editor@telecomlead.com
