Under the contract, Ericsson will supply Shandong Mobile with system equipment and telecom services to support Shandong Mobile's endeavors to upgrade the capacity and service quality of their GSM network. Ericsson will also introduce the latest AXE810 switching platform and relevant software to the current GSM network expansion, to lay a solid foundation for future smooth migration into a third generation mobile communications network.

Planned to be finished by December this year, the expansion will help Shandong Mobile to achieve a total capacity of 18 million users for their network by the time of completion.

 

"Competing in a highly competitive telecom market, Shandong Mobile is committed, as always, to providing premium quality network services for our subscribers to win the market", said Mr. Liu Aili, General Manager of Shandong Mobile. "We believe Ericsson's industry-leading technology and extensive network roll-out expertise will help us achieve our business and market goals, while laying a sound foundation for future smooth evolution to 3G technology."

"We are very honoured that Shandong Mobile continues to place their confidence in us and choose Ericsson as their strategic partner to build a premium-quality GSM network," said Mats H Olsson, President of Ericsson China. "As both a global and local technology and market leader in telecommunications, Ericsson has established extensive and intensive co-operation with Shandong Mobile with strong proven track records. Ericsson will continue to proactively support Shandong Mobile in coping with the rapidly-growing market and work seamlessly with Shandong Mobile to better serve the mobile users in the Province and the very increasing demand, to seek growth for both partners."

The co-operation between Ericsson and Shandong Mobile dates back to 1995, when Ericsson was selected to build Shandong Mobile's first GSM network. Ericsson built Shandong Mobile's initial GSM900/1800 and GPRS network systems, and has remained the sole system supplier of Shandong Mobile's GSM900 network. The two parties have also set up full co-operation in other areas such as IP backbone networks, WLAN, LMDS, microwave transmission, and complete professional telecom services.