Telekom Austria has awarded mobile network upgrade deals, including the supply of LTE equipment, to Ericsson. The contract covers the telco's home market and its Croatian subsidiary Vipnet.
Using multi-standard radio access network equipment, Ericsson will upgrade the operator's 2G and 3G infrastructure, as well as providing additional LTE infrastructure. The vendor will deploy multi-standard base stations to give Telekom Austria a flexible 2G/3G/4G RAN.
Rollout of the equipment has already started.
Financial terms of the deal, which extends Ericsson's existing relationship with Telekom Austria, were not disclosed.
The firms said the deal will help Telekom Austria's domestic unit A1 and Vipnet meet customer demand for a faster mobile broadband experience.
"We will be happy to see our subscribers in Austria and Croatia reap immediate benefits from having access to the latest network technologies," said Hans Pichler, group chief technology officer at Telekom Austria, in a statement.
According to the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), three Austrian operators – A1, T-Mobile and 3 – have commercially launched LTE networks. The other winner of 2.6-GHz spectrum auctioned in Austria in 2010 was Orange, which has conducted LTE trials. 3 is in the process of acquiring Orange's assets, but the deal has yet to receive regulatory approval.
Meanwhile in Croatia, T-Hrvatski Telekom and Vipnet both launched LTE services earlier this year.