Ericsson Australia today announced it had been awarded a significant contract from Telstra to design, supply and commission an advanced General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network for Greater Sydney.
The introduction of GPRS will bring high-speed data services and advanced Internet applications over the existing digital GSM mobile network to Telstra's customers.
Telstra has also selected Ericsson to upgrade its existing GSM digital mobile network to support GPRS, later this year confirming Ericsson as the major GSM mobile vendor to Telstra.
Commenting on the granting of the contract to Ericsson, Group Managing Director, Telstra On Air, Dick Simpson, said GPRS will offer customers a substantially faster and far more cost-efficient service with access to interactive information services such as telstra.com.
"Telstra's GPRS service provision is a significant investment by the Corporation to ensure Australia's mobile phone customers can take full advantage of the data-rich world of the future", he said.
John Young, Director of Ericsson's Telstra Customer Unit, said his company was delighted to fill such a contract which would ensure that Telstra maintains its leadership in the mobile market, innovation and network capability.
"This latest Telstra decision is an important milestone in the long-standing business relationship between the two organisations. Over the years, Ericsson, with Telstra, has worked to deliver high quality, high performance products through the introduction of GSM digital technology and previous to that, analogue mobile technology (AMPS)."
GPRS introduces packet switching and the Internet Protocol to mobile networks, enabling the mobile Internet and infinite applications. Ericsson's GPRS system will enable operators to offer mobile Internet and other IP-based applications at speeds up to more than ten times as fast as current mobile networks that are optimized for voice applications. GPRS standards enable data rates up to 115kbps, compared with the current GSM speed of 9.6kbps, and is suitable for all types of transmission, especially bursts of data traffic.
GPRS is also ideal for carrying Internet data-for instance email, news items, information and entertainment services designed for WAP/GPRS-enabled mobile handsets.
This win further cements Ericsson's leadership in high speed mobile networks. "Ericsson has recently secured the first three contracts worldwide for the provision of 3G mobile networks. The contracts have been awarded by two Finnish carriers and Japan Telecom," continued Mr Young.
Ericsson has the world leading position in GPRS with more than 50 percent of global contracts, as measured by operators' subscriber base. Ericsson has taken a leadership role with its open, multi-vendor GPRS systems and is already today conducting well over 40 GPRS customer trials with leading operators in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
The GPRS customer trials permit operators to do extensive evaluations to prepare for their commercial launch of mobile Internet applications.
Earlier in the year, Telstra successfully made Australia's first live to air Digital GSM GPRS data call in Australia, using a trial system supplied by Ericsson. GPRS applications were successfully tested in February 2000, when Telstra demonstrated telstra.com email and WAP services over GPRS.
