Ericsson Wins GSM Expansion Contract in China

Guangdong Mobile Communications Co. (GMCC) and Ericsson have signed a contract for the sixth expansion of GMCC's GSM network. Under the contract, Ericsson will provide GMCC with network infrastructure equipment, software, and services valued at more than US $630 million (SEK 5.4 billion). Upon completion of the expansion project early next year, the capacity of GMCC's dualband GSM 900/1800 network will exceed 18 million subscribers.

Under the contract, Ericsson will deliver R8 software (Release 8 of the Ericsson GSM system), designed to support the introduction of higher-bandwidth data and multimedia services and thereby the evolution of GSM to 3G and a wide range of wireless communications, information, and entertainment services. The company will also provide GMCC with its Enhanced Full Rate speech coder solution, which improves the voice quality of GSM, particularly for women and children's voices, which have higher frequencies than men's.

Equipment will be supplied by Ericsson's largest joint venture in China, Nanjing Ericsson Communications Company Ltd. Deliveries will commence in April 2000 and continue throughout the rest of the year.

Ericsson first established its business relationship with GMCC in 1987, with the first contract for analog TACS mobile network equipment. Since then, Ericsson has cooperated with GMCC closely in the building up of the mobile network in Guangdong.

Edited by Ellen Jensen