Huawei wins US $ 550 million GSM expansion contract from Pakistan's Ufone

Ufone is the subsidiary company of Etisalat, and also the country's second largest telecom service provider. Under the agreement, Huawei will provide its future-oriented EnerG GSM solution to expand Ufone's network to cover over 1,500 cities, towns, villages and all major highways in the country. The network also allows Ufone subscribers to enjoy high-speed wireless data service.

The GSM contract for Ufone also include Huawei's new generation GSM dual density base transceiver station (BTS) that feature high integrated and receiving sensitivity to improve the network performance and lower the cost of network construction and operation and maintenance expenditure. Additinally, Huawei will also provide the Mobile Softswitch solution based on the advanced UMTS release four (R4) architecture to satisfy Ufone's network expansion requirements to evolve into providing provider 3G smoothly.

'The previous network roll-out was the single largest in the history of Pakistan and we are maintening the precedence set this time as well. Pakistan is a high-growth market for mobile operators,' said Ufone President Babar Khan. 'The current investments in network expansion will double its existing capacity. With Huawei's EnerG GSM solution, we are able to provide high-speed wireless data service, thus further enhancing our service offering to Ufone subsctibers.'

Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, commented: 'The telecommunication industry in Pakistan is now in a fast track development period, when operators are competing on rapid network construction in a scaled manner and the provision of rich services to customers. As one of the top-class carriers in the world, Etisalat PTML (Ufone) has high standards for vendors in terms of their capability of end-to-end delivery. With our rapid response to customer's requirements and rich experience in scaled network construction globally, we are fully confident in our capability to satisfy these requirements.'

As the world's fastest-growing mainstream vendor, Huawei's GSM solution serves 120 million global subscribers. The company has established strategic partnerships with Etisalat, STC, Telefónica, France Telecom, KPN, MTN, MTS, China Mobile and China Unicom.