China Mobile demonstrates world’s first international TDD/FDD VoLTE Call

Chinese operator China Mobile has teamed up with infrastructure vendor Huawei to demonstrate the world’s first international VoLTE HD voice and video calls between a TDD LTE network and a FDD LTE network, the vendor said.

The demonstration was conducted over China Mobile’s VoLTE trial networks in Chengdu and Hangzhou, and a VoLTE network in South Korea.

Li Zhengmao, China Mobile’s vice president, held a meeting to demonstrate the call, as China Mobile steps up its efforts to accelerate VoLTE commercialisation and TD-LTE internationalisation.

The video call demonstration between China Mobile’s trial network in Hangzhou and a network in South Korea was made by Li Zhengmao through the Huawei’s multimedia conference system in Chengdu.

“China Mobile attaches great importance to VoLTE development,” said Li over the video call. “In June of this year, China Mobile’s president, Li Yue, released a VoLTE white paper stating that China Mobile will achieve VoLTE commercialisation by the end of 2014. This VoLTE voice and video interaction has great strategic significance and will help further promote support of the VoLTE solution in the global LTE industry.”

Although China Mobile’s TD-LTE deployment is gaining momentum in China, issues relating to global interoperability of TD-LTE services, such as the international roaming capability of LTE voice and data, as well as VoLTE interworking across different countries, must be resolved before TD-LTE services can achieve full internationalisation.

The VoLTE demonstration shows that China Mobile’s TDD VoLTE network has the capability to cross international boundaries and interwork with networks that use different communication systems, said Huawei.

In July this year, Huawei and China Mobile jointly conducted what they claim was the world’s first TD-LTE based eSRVCC handover test. Then in September, China Mobile made what it claims to be the world’s first national VoLTE voice call in a TD-LTE network environment by partnering with Huawei.

source: http://www.telecoms.com/201081/china-mobile-demonstrates-worlds-first-international-tddfdd-volte-call/

MTN Awards Managed Services Contracts to Ericsson and Huawei

MTN Nigeria has announced that it has signed managed services agreement with both Ericsson and Huawei.

Under the terms of the contracts, Ericsson and Huawei will take over the management, optimisation and field maintenance of MTN's network infrastructure in all its operational regions in the country.

MTN will retain ownership and full control of its network assets and continue to have responsibility for strategic design and planning, as well as equipment purchasing decisions.

Financial terms, nor the duration of the contact were provided. 

source: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/62891.php

Huawei Wins Saudi Managed Services Contract

Saudi Arabia based Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has awarded contracts to both Huawei and Comptel today.

In an exceptionally short statement, Huawei simply noted that it has won a 4 year managed services contract.

NSN currently manages STC's GSM and 3G radio networks. It's not clear if the Huawei deal affects that agreement.

A very slightly longer comment from Comptel noted that it has been awarded a contract to support its fulfillment architecture -- the order workflow and management of assets.

Neither company offered any financial details.

source: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/63057.php