Ericsson Wins Russian LTE Deployment Contract

Ericsson and Russia’s Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) have announced a cooperation to jointly develop ICT infrastructure for an LTE network in four regions covering more than half of Russia, thus becoming MTS’s main vendor.

Under the three-year agreement and starting in Q2, 2013, Ericsson will roll out LTE in the Siberian, Ural, Volga, and Southern Federal Districts of Russia.

In the first stage of the project, Ericsson will supply no less than 10,000 new-generation products from the RBS 6000 series. It will also supply core network hardware and services in the same regions, as well as in the Northwestern Federal District. As part of the agreement, Ericsson and MTS will extend their cooperation to further develop 2G/3G networks in several regions in Russia.

Andrei Dubovskov, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTS Group, says: “The regions we have targeted for 4G service coverage are very important industrial hubs with key sectors driving the Russian economy” adding that “We intend to start building 4G networks in Russia in the near future to provide subscribers in approximately 15 regions in Russia with high-speed data services by the end of 2013.”

Financial terms for the contract were not disclosed.