Notwithstanding its concerns with corruption allegations and Ukraine, reported yesterday, Ericsson seems to have had a successful MWC in terms of agreements announced at the show. Deals involving Zain KSA, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Ooredoo Qatar have all been highlighted by the telecoms giant during the event.
Firstly Saudi operator Zain KSA is extending its partnership with Ericsson to upgrade and modernize its charging systems. The scope of the charging agreement, signed at MWC, includes upgrades across hardware, software, and services.
As part of the agreement, Ericsson will also introduce its modular, scalable, open and single convergent Online Charging System (OCS) and Ericsson 5G Standalone (SA) charging into Zain’s network. This will enable Zain KSA to efficiently secure revenues and accelerate the time-to-market speed of new services including 5G.
Also at MWC, Jerry Soper, head of Ericsson Indonesia, and Vikram Sinha, president director and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH), have signed a partnership for 4G and 5G RAN systems in Indonesia.
The partnership will support Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison's vision to become the preferred digital telco in Indonesia by expanding 5G service coverage to several cities including Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi.
The new rollouts are an expansion of the 5G services introduced by IOH together with Ericsson in Jakarta in August 2021. Besides Jakarta, IOH has deployed 5G services in other cities in Indonesia including Solo, Surabaya and Makassar.
Qatar operator Ooredoo and Ericsson have also signed a partnership at MWC, this time to provide offshore enterprise connectivity in Qatar. As part of the five-year partnership, Ericsson will supply and manage a 4G network for Ooredoo oil and gas enterprise customers at their offshore sites to meet their traffic requirements.
The project will begin in the second quarter of 2022 with Ericsson providing 4G radio solutions from its Ericsson Radio System portfolio, with the ability to seamlessly transition to 5G in the future.
Meanwhile, though not an MWC-announced deal, Mozambique operator Tmcel has implemented Ericsson’s Wallet Platform to support its mobile financial services. Ericsson says its Wallet Platform will make it easier for Tmcel’s customers to make fast and easy-to-use financial transactions on a next-generation mobile financial service.
