Under the terms of the deal, Ericsson will integrate the Ericsson Radio System portfolio into approximately 1,000 Tigo sites with the phase taking place sometime before the end of 2018. Spend on this network upgrade was already included in Millicom’s existing investment plans.
"We continue to be committed to our customers by bringing the best network to them. Working with Ericsson allows us to deploy the latest mobile technologies that are an important component for our path evolving to 5G and IoT capabilities," said Xavier Rocoplan, executive vice president, chief technology and information officer at Millicom.
Once completed the Ericsson Radio System rollout will provide Radio 2219 as well as Radio 4415 enabling full 4x4 MIMO capabilities. In addition, the agreement includes indoor coverage through the Radio Dot System and micro radios for hotspot capacity in Paraguay, which wll improve the network quality and user experience for Tigo customers across both countries.
The project will also expand Tigo’s existing network and modernise its 2G/3G and 4G sites making the network well prepared to deliver future 5G and IoT services.
"We listened to TIGO and understood their urgency to have 5G-ready infrastructure to stay at the forefront of customer service in Paraguay and Honduras,” said Arun Bansal (pictured), president of Ericsson in Europe and Latin America. “Through this partnership, we are deploying our state-of-the-art Ericsson Radio System that offers quicker time to market and superior network performance."
Last week Ericsson was at the centre of a different controversy in the UK. Telefónica's O2 UK suffered a major network outage that left millions of its users without access to 4G and other internet services. Ericsson, one of O2’s third party identified a global software issue that caused a network for O2 and potentially other mobile operators around the world to go down.
