CSL opened the doors of its LTE lab in Kowloon Bay yesterday – the first in Hong Kong and one of the first in the world.
The CSL Technology Center is at the heart of a cluster of LTE field trials across the city, offering download speeds of up to 127 Mbps.
But it also represents the overlapping ambitions of Telstra-owned CSL and its equipment supplier, ZTE.
For CSL, it has been a chance to revamp its networks and take the technology lead in the hyper-competitive local market.
But it has been possible only because of the massive resources committed by its mainland technology partner.
At one stage ZTE had sent 1,000 engineers to Hong Kong to work on the project – almost as many as CSL’s 1,400 staff. It now has a team of 600 working with CSL in Hong Kong, according to CSL chief technology officer Christian Daigneault.
“ZTE didn’t choose us – they chose our parent,” he said. “ZTE knew all about the technologies, but needed a major carrier partner to tell them what they needed,”
Telstra sent its top mobile engineers to Hong Kong to work with ZTE. Now, even though it is not one of Telstra’s vendors, ZTE is continuing to work with the operator on LTE in Australia.