Under a memorandum of understanding signed today Ericsson has been appointed to deliver and deploy radio access equipment, core infrastructure and services in support of Telstra including design, installation, integration and project management. The parties will finalise their commercial arrangements as soon as possible.

Håkan Eriksson, Chief Technology Officer for Ericsson, said at a media and analyst briefing, that the migration to one national network would help deliver the best possible services and performance to Telstra customers across the country.

"With one national network in Australia there is greater freedom for local and international roaming, stronger community value and greater choice of handsets and services," said Mr. Eriksson.

The national 3G network will offer all Australians equivalent access to higher-speed information and access to exciting, valuable new services and experiences, such as telemedicine, distance education, public safety and entertainment video mobile services. The new network will more than triple the choice of handsets for rural customers.

WCDMA is the dominant 3G technology selected by 8 of the world's 10 largest operators. Ericsson expects that by 2007, as much as 80 percent of all mobile subscribers will be served by the GSM/ EDGE/WCDMA family, in which Ericsson holds a leading position with a 35 percent market share.  

The WCDMA technology path represents a natural and fully standardized evolution of WCDMA for Telstra, with the introduction of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). HSDPA can provide peak data rates of up to 14 Mbit/s and is the enabler for Mobile Broadband and Mobile TV services to become mass-market.

 

 

Ericsson Media Relations

Phone: +46 8 719 6992

E-mail: press.relations@ericsson.com