Vodafone Hutchinson Australia will upgrade the backbone of it’s Australian mobile network with new equipment supplied by Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.
The upgrade to VHA’s network backbone comes as Vodafone and 3 Mobile complete the merger of their backend systems and look forward to grow the company to be competitive with the performance of Telstra’s NextG network.
Technically the solution from Ericsson will comprise the MHL 3000 DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) platform, OMS 1400 series, and MINI-LINK TN microwave solution. Or in layman’s terms, a combination of optical fibre transceivers (those that transmit the light itself), optical cable connectors/cable, and microwave dishes that all work together to form a network to transmit data between mobile base stations.
Vodafone and 3 Mobile have come under fire for their poor mobile network performance relative to Telstra’s NextG mobile network. The deployment of this new network hardware from Ericsson will go some of the way to improve performance for VHA, at least in areas with decent mobile reception and during peak use periods (such as evenings, when casual internet users are most often using mobile internet connections) where the mobile backbone becomes saturated.
Vodafone has continues to position itself as a business oriented mobile carrier since the 3 Mobile merger, this network upgrade will finally give the telco business class performance and allow the company to deliver on its 900Mhz 3G network’s capabilities.
Earlier this year Telstra upgraded it’s Sydney to Melbourne NextIP network using Ericsson’s MHL 3000 DWDM platform, quadrupling network performance as a result and giving it a significant leg up on rivals.
Sam Saba, Chief Executive Officer, Ericsson Australia and New Zealand, said that operators world-wide are planning the deployment of 40Gbps DWDM technology to cope with the fast-growing demand for broadband bandwidth.