While Huawei has been creating a splash among European ClIniers in the past year, its compatliot and roen:e filial ZTE has had less success on the infrastructure siie. However, with 3G carriers looking to software programmable base stations to ease their mi9ration to LTE, ZTE believes it has a strong route into European 4G roM· outs. and has announced two deals in two weeks.
The first was with Pannon in Hungary, part of the Telenor Group, which Is already worldng with Huawel in Norway and has now ctlOsen ZTE for its live netwon.; trial. It claims it is saving up to 50% by choosing Chinese vendors Over its inrumbent 3G suppliers Ericsson and Nokia Siemens. Now it has followed up with a deal at Portugars Optimus. already ZTE's closest European partner for smartphones. The carrier is to use ZTE's software defined radio ted1nology to upgrade parts of its 2G and 3G networks and to create a mi9rati(m path to L TE in a few years' time. Initially, Optimus will replace its rurrent mobile infrastructure in four regions of central Portugal, and if the results are good, it will expand the initiative to other areas and start to plot its LTE course. The celkn rurrently uses RAN equipment from Ericsson and Huawei (the latter for 3G only). The Chinese vendor said none of its kit was being ripped out, which suggests the project will mainly affect Ericsson GSM gear.
Although Optimus is hardly a tier one Carrier, being the third largest cellco in a small economy, it is an important breakthrough for ZTE's SOR platform, which has mainly scored in ASia, partic1.llarty at flagship cus tomer eSL of Hong Kong. SDR is increasingly Important as a competitive weapon for vendors, a. of which have programs to help their rustomers implement flexible migrations to LTE, to encourage earty adoption. Operators tMt have invested in SDR·eapable base stations over the past couple of years wUI be able to introduce LTE overlays at lower cost and disruption than investing in entirely new equipment. Even when LTE is being implemented in different bands to 3G, as at AT&T, only rad ios may need to be acquired . For Its 700MHz LTE bUild, AT&T needs new radioS at e
An HSPA base stations depioyed by AT&'T from now onwards will be able to support both 3G and L TE, although In urban areaS the processing power even of newer infrastructure will be entirely used up by the expanding HSPA system, requiring separate base stations for LTE, especially when this is using 10MHz channel<;, as opposed to the SMHz of HSPA (though in some cases AT&T may deploy LTE In SMHI channel<; too). Alcatel· Lucent is the grandfather of software defined base stations, having started its SDR program bade In the 19905.
