The enhanced Ericsson Expander solutions not only improve radio network performance - so that areas can be served by up to 50 percent fewer radio sites - but also address other major cost areas, such as power consumption, transmission, and network rollout.

The new Expander site and transmission solutions offer total site solutions including preconfigured radio base stations, antennas, power and installation systems, transmission solutions, and services. These reduce site, transmission, and network rollout costs, maximize radio performance, and speed up network rollout, while maintaining reliability.

Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson's vice president Product Management GSM RAN, says: "With these new solutions, we are not only exploiting our technology leadership to make step-wise changes in radio network performance, we are also making use of our experience in network rollout to address 'softer' issues that influence operators' total cost of ownership. We're making it possible for operators to open up the world of mobile communications for people in rural areas or those with low disposable incomes."

Jan Signell, president of Ericsson South East Asia, believes these solutions will be well received in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, where there will be tremendous growth in the number of new mobile users in the next five years. "As penetration grows, the lower-spending segment of the population becomes increasingly important. This is why we are focusing on cost-optimized solutions to help our customers grow this segment in a profitable way," Signell says.

"Seeing that this is one of the major challenges for our customers in this region, we have made cost-optimized solutions a key focus area. We are also looking at ways to leverage our strong regional presence and economies of scale to further lower costs. One step we are taking is reducing the cost of materials and build, which represents a significant percentage of total cost of ownership."     

Key to achieving low total cost of ownership with the new Expander site solutions is Ericsson's latest GSM radio and microwave transmission products. These include: new antenna systems, such as Ericsson's unique modular high-gain antennas (MHGA) that provide even wider coverage; the new GSM radio base station 2x16, which improves radio performance and reduces power consumption by 20-30 percent; and the Macro Main Remote RBS 2108/2111 base stations, which provide low-cost entry solutions and fill in coverage in areas such as villages or hilly terrain where providing wide-area coverage with few sites is difficult. These solutions simplify site location and significantly reduce network rollout time.

The Ericsson microwave portfolio fully supports Expander's wide-area coverage solutions. It offers great flexibility in the choice of site location, and reduces civil works significantly when compared to copper or fiber-based transmission. The MINI-LINK TN solution enables very cost-efficient transmission networks to be built, resulting in up to 25 percent capex savings, thanks to its modern architecture designed to reduce site costs. In addition, the system cuts opex through reduced power consumption, simplified installation, enhanced reliability, and improved network management capabilities, with remote capacity upgrades and improved scalability.

Overall, Expander's optimized and preconfigured site solutions and rollout services significantly reduce total cost of ownership and cut time to market for operators, while providing a high-quality platform for future growth and development.

 

Ericsson Media Relations

Phone: +46 8 719 6992

E-mail: press.relations@ericsson.com

The Ericsson Expander portfolio includes GSM/EDGE solutions that reduce operators' total cost of network ownership. Cost-efficient coverage, with quick and simple network deployment, is key to addressing rural areas and low-spending subscriber segments profitably. Expander solutions are scalable and flexible, enabling long-term capacity expansion as demand increases.