To maintain a foothold in the country’s telecommunication industry, Unitel, a private Angolan mobile phone company, has contracted Swedish mobile telecommunications equipment maker, Ericsson to develop its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband network.

The LTE service which was launched commercially in Angolan capital, Luanda, by the two partners last December will help Unitel service its customers with faster mobile broadband speeds, meet subscriber’s burgeoning demand for data-driven services and offer the most innovative services available in the market currently.

CEO Unitel, Miguel Martins said; “The recent launch of Unitel’s 4G LTE network powered by Ericsson demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with the highest standard and state-of-the-art mobile broadband services.”

Ericsson, which already has more than 90 commercial LTE contracts in six continents, of which over 50 have already gone live, said, the move become imperative inorder to meet mobile broadband growth and increased penetration of applications on smartphones and tablets.

Ericsson confirmed that it would undertake the design and implementation of the LTE network. It will also see to the installation of new LTE cell sites and the provision of its Home Subscriber Servers (HSS) platform to manage user data management.

The agreement included the integration of LTE functionality into existing provisioning and charging systems and an upgrade of the core network to a triple-access (2G/3G/4G) evolved packet core.

“This deal reaffirms Ericsson’s leadership in LTE and further extends our long-standing relationship with Unitel. The new LTE network will facilitate Unitel’s continued delivery of superior connectivity, services and capabilities to their customers,” Ericsson’s head of sub-Saharan Africa, Lars Linden said.