Alcatel-Lucent has been named as one of three suppliers chosen by China Telecom to handle the rollout of its Frequency Division Duplex Long Term Evolution (FDD-LTE) network. The French-US vendor will deploy the system in 40 cities across twelve provinces, namely: Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning. Under the terms of the deal, Alca-Lu will provide the operator with its 9926 eNodeB radio access network (RAN) portfolio and services in H1 2015. As previously noted by CommsUpdate, China Telecom, along with larger rival China Unicom, were awarded long-awaited FDD-LTE concessions in late February 2015, more than a year after the regulator issued licences for competing home-grown technology Time Division (TD)-LTE.
