The last carrier to release the names of its LTE providers, TIM, announced that it has chosen Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks as partners to provide the next generation of telecommunication networks in Brazil.
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TIM said it has invested about U.S.$200 million (R$400 million) to buy a lot in the V1 band and six lots in the P band at the 2.6 GHz auction of frequency bands, held in June.
According to TIM, the selection of suppliers is aligned with the strategy it adopted at the beginning of last year, when the carrier invested almost U.S.$500 million (R$1 billion) to upgrade its network. At the time, the carrier signed a three year contract with three suppliers for GSM and 3G infrastructure.
In the first agreement, each of the manufacturers, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens, was responsible for serving a particular region. Now, under the new agreement, the same partners will offer LTE in areas where the infrastructure already provides services to TIM in GSM and 3G.
Among the other carriers that will deploy LTE in the coming months, Telefónica tapped Ericsson and Huawei as vendors. Ericsson will provide LTE solutions across the north and center-west regions, as well as in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Bahia. Huawei will provide infrastructure to the cities of Fortaleza, Recife and Rio de Janeiro. There is still no decision on vendors for the remaining areas that the carrier is obligated to cover under the auction rules.
Claro officially announced that Ericsson and Huawei would be its LTE providers, although Nokia Siemens Networks claimed that Claro also named NSN as an LTE provider. The Brazilian carrier Oi has named NSN, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as vendors.
