Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has moved to keep up with the explosion in mobile broadband demand, appointing Ericsson to build its new high capacity national transmission network.
The deal will see Ericsson deploy thousands of upgraded microwave radio and optical fibre links throughout Australia to boost capacity on the country's third biggest commercial telco network.
The networking vendor will also be responsible for network design, installation and integration, field support, project management and integration work.
The upgraded network will be based on Ericsson's MHL 3000 DWDM platform, OMS 1400 series of optical transport products, and the MINI-LINK TN microwave solution.
According to VHA chief executive, Nigel Dews, dramatic growth in its mobile broadband business meant a powerful and reliable transmission network with the capacity to meet future demand was essential to keep up with customer expectations of speed and reliability.
Earlier this month Ericsson A/NZ strategic marketing manager, Warren Chaisatien, said Australian mobile broadband growth continued unabated, with user numbers expected to reach some 3.2 million in mid-2010.
“At 15 per cent of the population, Australia remains a mobile broadband world leader, currently ranked third globally behind Austria and Sweden,” he said in a statement.
"The Australian mobile broadband market is now entering its second wave, where one size no longer fits all, mobile broadband is complementing fixed broadband rather than cannibalising it, and prepaid and smartphones are fast emerging to join dongles. Service innovation, product differentiation and user experience - rather than pricing - will be the key factors going forward."
Optus has also been investigating in technologies which it hopes will allow it to deal with the massive demand for mobile broadband.
Earlier this month the company said it had achieved 50 megabits per second (Mbps) downlink and 20Mbps uplink speeds on its first Sydney trial of Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless broadband technology.
In March Telstra confirmed it was trialling LTE technology, including offerings from Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson.