Alcatel-Lucent has picked up another major contract from China's 4G rollouts, securing a deal to become one of the top three suppliers for China Telecom's dual-mode LTE trials.
Under the deal, the company will provide its lightRadio LTE RAN product, as well as 9,892 TD-LTE and FDD LTE base stations in 12 Chinese provinces.
China Telecom plans to hold LTE trials across 40 cities in advance of a commercial launch.
In a statement, Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michael Combes said he considered the win an important milestone for the company's “shift plan” to refocus its attention on ultra-broadband and IP networking.
No financial terms of the contract were disclosed. The deal comes three months after Alcatel-Lucent won around 11% of a China Mobile tender for 207,000 TD-LTE base stations.
Last month, the vendor also won 24% - the largest individual share – of China Mobile's tender to build the Evolved Packet Core for its 4G network.
The Chinese government awarded 4G licenses to all three mobile operators last week. But the licenses currently only cover TD-LTE technologies, so both China Telecom and China Unicom are considered likely to deploy dual-mode TDD/FDD LTE networks.