Ericsson Partners With Unitel For 4G/LTE Leadership In Angola

• Unitel selects Ericsson to bring high-speed mobile broadband services to Angola
• Move to meet mobile broadband growth and increased penetration of applications on smartphones and tablets
• Ericsson further expands its global leadership in LTE

Ericsson today announced that it has been selected by Unitel, leading provider of telecommunications services in Angola, as key supplier of its next-generation 4G/LTE network.

The agreement covers the deployment of new LTE sites, Ericsson’s Home Subscriber Servers (HSS) for user data management. It also includes the integration of LTE functionality into existing provisioning and charging systems, and an upgrade of the core network to a triple-access Evolved Packet Core that simultaneous carries GSM, WCDMA and LTE traffic.

Under the scope of the agreement, Ericsson is also responsible for the design, implementation and initial tuning of the LTE network.
Miguel Martins, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member at Unitel, said ” The recent launch of Unitel’s 4G LTE network powered by Ericsson demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with the highest standard and state of the art mobile broadband services.”

To maintain its strong position in the Angolan marketplace, Unitel launched Long Term Evolution (LTE) services commercially on Sunday, December 16, introducing faster mobile broadband speeds, meeting the burgeoning demand for data-driven services and giving Unitel the ability to offer its customers the most innovative services available on the market today.

Lars Lindén, head of Region Sub-Saharan Africa, Ericsson, said: “This deal reaffirms Ericsson’s leadership in LTE and further extends our long-standing relationship with Unitel. The new LTE network will facilitate Unitel’s continued delivery of superior connectivity, services and capabilities to their customers.”
Ericsson is the world leader in LTE and today has more than 90 commercial LTE contracts on six continents, of which over 50 networks have already gone live. More than 455 million people worldwide have LTE coverage, of which 305 million are covered by LTE networks supplied by Ericsson (July 2012).

NOTES TO EDITORS
Unitel, Angola: Empowering growth
Ericsson selected for consulting and network expansion by Unitel in Angola
LTE media kit
Download high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video

About Unitel, S.A.
Unitel is the largest telecommunications company and the leading mobile operator in Angola. With more than 8.8 million customers and coverage in all provinces in the country since 2002, Unitel, revolutionized the telecommunications market through quality and innovation of services which introduced, roaming and access to data on broadband (LTE and HSPA+).
www.unitel.ao

About Ericsson
Ericsson is the world's leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world.
Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today more than 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers’ networks servicing more than 2,5 billion subscribers. 

We operate in 180 countries and employ more than 100,000 people. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 the company’s net sales were SEK 226,9 billion (USD 35.0 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.

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