Swisscom has selected Ericsson for an upgrade of its mobile infrastructure to LTE. The selection follows an open tender in which five vendors participated. Swisscom plans to invest several hundred million Swiss francs over the next five years to update all mobile base stations, increase network capacity at heavily frequented locations and press ahead with LTE expansion.
Swisscom plans to begin the rollout in January 2012 and by mid-2014 all 6,000 mobile base stations will be upgraded with new hardware and software and connected to fibre-optic lines. The carrier expects to add more than 300 new mobile sites each year. The antenna systems will not be affected, and the stringent radiation limits will continue to be met. Swisscom also said it intends to set up microcells at busy locations. In addition, the existing HSPA network will be increased to a maximum of 84 Mbps in the downlink.
http://www.swisscom.com
