Samsung aims to leverage the TDD expertise it gained from its WiMAX dominance to become a serious TD-LTE player ‘ and from that springboard, to leap into FD-LTE, and a seat at the infrastructure top table.
This has always eluded it in the past, but it has won some encouraging deals for LTE, including part of Sprint’s Network Vision project, several WiMAX-to-LTE migration deals, and now the first tranche of the huge Reliance Infotel TD-LTE roll-out in India. According to Light Reading India, Reliance is buying RAN, core and access layer kit for the Mumbai operating circle from Samsung, disappointing Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, NSN, Huawei and ZTE.
RIL, the only player with nationwide BWA spectrum for TD-LTE in India, plans to roll out initially in Mumbai and Delhi. The second of these networks has yet to be awarded.