L.M. Ericsson announced it received an order from Tokyo Digital Phone to expand its Personal Digital Cellular mobile telephone system.
Ericsson said the order, valued at $85 million, includes switching and radio base station equipment as well as new software functions to be delivered during 1996.
The expansion of the system is needed to cope with the high subscriber growth TDP has experienced, Ericsson said. The capacity and security of the TDP switching network will be enhanced by introducing two gateway switches, and the coverage and capacity of the radio network also will be enhanced, Ericsson said. TDP will introduce its second network center at the end of this year to prepare for further network expansion.
There currently are more than 9 million cellular subscribers in Japan. TDP has more than 400,000 subscribers and said it doubled its subscriber base in four months. It is expected there will be more than 30 million cellular subscribers in Japan by the year 2000.
NOTABLE QUOTE
“In some respects, the wired system already is obsolete. We will have a half-dozen wireless options, and that will give us competition.”
Howard Anderson, president of The Yankee Group in Boston. Story on Page 6.
