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New win builds on framework contract signed in June.
Nokia was awarded a 30 per cent share of a contract to build a new optical network for China Mobile in 2016-2017 to meet the future needs of the mobile operator’s 4G subscribers.
The Finland-based equipment provider is to deploy “100GB” optical technologies to support China Mobile’s “Broadband China” strategy. It’s not clear which other vendors are involved, but China Mobile has relationships with a number of vendors including Nokia rivals Ericsson and Huawei.
Mike Wang, head of the joint management team of Nokia Networks China and Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell (ASB), said this is a crucial win for the vendor.
“We are committed to delivering the latest optical transmission innovations to enable China Mobile to optimise their networks and open up new opportunities for their subscribers,” said Wang.
Nokia said the new contract win forms part of a frame agreement with China Mobile worth €1.36 billion that was signed in June.
Nokia will deploy a 100G optical transport network (OTN) and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) backbone based on the recently announced 1830 PSS-24X packet optical transport system.
The centrepiece of the network architecture is a four port 100G DWDM line card for the Nokia 1830 PSS-24X. This line card, in combination with other technologies, will enable China Mobile to add optical capacity as needed.
China Mobile recently reported that its first half net profit jumped 5.6% on last year thanks to continued strong growth in 4G customers, which now represent more than half of the operator’s overall mobile customer base.
China Mobile ended June with 837.04 million mobile customers. Of that total, 428.54 million, or 51.2%, are 4G customers. At the end of June 2015, those figures stood at 817.2 million and 189.66 million respectively.
