Nokia announced that it has been selected by Thai mobile operator, dtac, part of Telenor Group, as its first 5G RAN partner in a three-year deal covering the North and North Eastern regions of Thailand.
With this deal, Nokia said that it will ensure that dtac’s network performance is fully 5G-ready, which will enable a faster rollout of new 5G services as demand grows.
The deployment is expected to be fully completed in 2022.
The deal, which is an extension of Nokia’s existing partnership with dtac, will see an accelerated large-scale deployment of 5G on low-band spectrum (700-900 MHz) and high-capacity mmWave technology (26 GHz), as well as enhancements of the existing networks utilizing 2300 MHz, 2100 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum.
As part of this new agreement, Nokia will provide its AirScale Radio Access solutions for 4G and 5G networks that will improve overall network performance while enabling dtac to deliver 5G experience with ultra-low latency and extreme capacity. The deal includes digital deployment for faster time to market, as well as optimization services.
The Thai opeator will also deploy Nokia Software’s NetAct Cloud network management system, which delivers cloud-agnostic tools for troubleshooting, administration, software management and configuration management.
Prathet Tankuranun, CTO at dtac, said: “We never stop improving our network and delivering better data experiences across a broad range of devices. Our current deployment leverages 5G-enhanced mobile broadband and 5G-ready Massive MIMO technology to bring improved coverage and higher data capacity to our customers nationwide.”
Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: “We are delighted to extend our long-standing partnership with dtac in Thailand and be the first vendor to partner with the operator in the 5G era. Our AirScale portfolio offers a clear migration path to 5G and we look forward to supporting dtac with its efforts to deliver compelling 5G experiences to subscribers.”
The European vendor reached 138 commercial 5G deals with individual customers and a total of 187 commercial 5G engagements, including paid trials.
Nokia said that a total of 44 5G networks are already live using the company’s products and solutions.
Dtac currently has 20 megahertz of spectrum in the 700MHz band, 200 megahertz in the 26GHz band as well as additional spectrum in the 900, 1,800 and 2,100 MHz spectrum bands.
Earlier this year, rival operator Advanced Info Service (AIS) launched limited 5G packages in Thailand.
The AIS 5G network covered approximately 60% of the population in Bangkok, 16% of the country and 90% of Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) areas as of the end of October, according to previous reports.
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