Huawei Technologies, the mainland's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, has been contracted to overhaul all the 2G and 3G infrastructure of Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) in a massive network upgrade.
'We're installing the latest technology from the company that we believe is the best network hardware and software vendor in the world,' VHA chief executive Nigel Dews said yesterday.
The project, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, will replace about 5,800 existing 2G and 3G base station sites with Huawei's SingleRAN solution.
VHA, which was formed in 2009 from the merger between Vodafone Australia and Hutchison 3G Australia, will also install the Huawei network equipment at more than 2,200 base station sites that the carrier will bring into its nationwide network over the next 18 months.
The Huawei system can deliver 2G, 3G and the Long Term Evolution (LTE)-standard 4G services from a single base station site.
'Huawei's SingleRAN solution will enable Vodafone to upgrade to 4G at the flick of a switch, with the first LTE next-generation services expected to come online later this year,' Peter Rossi, chief technology officer at Huawei Australia, said.
VHA confirmed that all its customers' mobile phones and mobile broadband devices will remain compatible with the new Huawei equipment being introduced across the network. The carrier has more than 7.4 million subscribers in Australia.