The Chinese company expects deployments to be completed by the end of 2015 or in early 2016
Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei was awarded the largest share of China Mobile’s voice-over-LTE project, which includes network convergence building and reconstruction across 31 provinces and municipalities in China. According to the preliminary result of the overall bidding process, Huawei garnered almost half of the China Mobile VoLTE project share.
China Mobile aims to provide services for 50 million commercial VoLTE subscribers by the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016, with a key part the evolution of fixed IP multimedia subsystem networks to fixed-mobile convergence networks across China’s provinces. The provinces involved in Huawei’s contract are Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Hunan, Guizhou, Shanxi, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Anhui and Jilin.
“The transformation based on the existing fixed IMS network has already started in many provinces, and many provinces have announced the first VoLTE call in the first half of 2015. The deployment is expected to be finished before the end of this year or early 2016,” Wang Yongde, Huawei Technologies’ VP of core network product line and carrier business group told RCR Wireless News. “The transformation is based on the existing network expansion which was included in the bid. This network expansion bid accounts for 54% of the total VoLTE construction capacity.”
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VoLTE deployment and commercialization is forecast to grow rapidly in 2015, with a total of 28 commercial VoLTE networks currently operating worldwide according to a report by the GSMA. Huawei has won more than 50 VoLTE commercialization contracts as of July 2015.
China Mobile launched LTE services in late 2013 using spectrum in the 1900 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2500 MHz bands. China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator with more than 816 million subscribers and approximately 170 million connections on its LTE network.