Malaysian mobile carrier Altel Communications has signed a contract with Huawei for the roll-out of its 4G mobile broadband services.
Under the deal, Huawei will provide wireless, core, transport as well as billing services to Altel. The Chinese vendor will also provide consultation services to help Altel develop new competitive mobile services, including MVNO, according to the Sun Daily.
Altel, which plans to spend one billion ringgits ($307 million) on 4G network infrastructure over five years, is currently operating as a MVNO via a partnership with Celcom Axiata.
"We understand that rolling out a 4G network is not an overnight task. As such, we will be building our own radio network and leverage on Celcom's widest and fastest network in Malaysia as well as continuously invest over the next five years," Altel CEO Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Yaacob said.
Altel was among the eight companies that were awarded LTE 2.6-GHz spectrum by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission last year.
The company, a subsidiary of Altel Holdings, plans to build 500 LTE base stations in the first year and 2,100 in the next two to three years.
It has so far 20,000 registered subscribers nationwide and appointed more than 2,500 authorized dealers and 32 distributors nationwide.