Nokia and China Mobile on Friday announced the signing of a more than $1 billion (930 million Euros) deal under which Nokia will provide China Mobile with its 4G TD-LTE technology and wireless network equipment, core solutions, software and services.
According to the terms of the deal, Nokia will provide support for China Mobile in 2015 “and beyond” as it moves ahead with its 4G network rollout, which is slated to include one million TD-LTE base stations by the end of the year. The completed project will bring to life the “world’s largest TD-LTE network,” the companies said.
“This major agreement with China Mobile marks another milestone in our more than 20 years of partnership in the area of telecommunications,” said Nokia Networks Greater China area President Mike Wang. “Our agreement will further accelerate TD-LTE development in China and around the world.”
According to Wang, Nokia will also help China Mobile “support and promote the use of innovative IoT applications” across a variety of use cases as part of the agreement.
The agreement comes as Nokia announced Friday that it had achieved a 19.1 Gbps transmission speed in a joint 5G trial with SK Telecom in South Korea. According to Nokia, the test completed the transmission using “256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), 8×8 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission and 400 MHz of bandwidth.”
On Thursday, Nokia announced a dip in its third quarter revenues and net profits, but announced plans to distribute $4.4 billion (4 billion Euros) to shareholders.