Ericsson said the new launch will help boost broadband coverage in underserved areas by decreasing total cost of ownership
Swedish vendor Ericsson said it has unveiled a new set of solutions to target emerging markets with a goal to help bridge the digital divide and bring mobile broadband coverage to underserved regions in emerging markets.
Ericsson’s new suite of solutions includes software and hardware additions to the Ericsson Radio System and provides the capabilities needed to reduce the total cost of ownership by up to 40% when rolling out Ericsson’s total site solution for mobile broadband, the company said.
“These are among the most important additions to our product portfolio for mobile broadband coverage growth ever. Ericsson supports the International Telecommunication Union’s Connect 2020 target of ensuring that more than 50% of people in the developing world are using the internet by 2020,” Arun Bansal, head of business unit network products at Ericsson, said. “In order to reach this goal, together we will need to connect roughly 500,000 new users to the internet each day.”
The new suite of solutions consists of Ericsson Site Manager software paired with Ericsson Site Controller, Radio 2219, Antenna Integrated Radio, AIR 2488, MINI-LINK 6363 and MINI-LINK 6651 indoor units. It also includes new software enhancements to both the Zero Touch WCDMA and Flow of Users solutions.
The Swedish company said these new tools will allow operators to identify which sites in a GSM/EDGE coverage area have the highest number of users who already have internet-ready devices, in order to determine where it makes more sense to convert those sites first to High Speed Packet Access or 4G/LTE.
“India is a very diverse market so our greatest need in challenging areas is to complement the existing GSM networks with [Wideband Code Division Multiplexing Access] and LTE access. We see the Radio 2219 and Psi Coverage as important assets when we extend mobile broadband coverage across the country,” Indian mobile operator Idea Cellular’s president for corporate network planning, Rajesh Singh, said.
