Ericsson to boost PTC backhaul

Swedish equipment vendor Ericsson has been selected to upgrade the mobile backhaul system of Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC), Poland’s largest cellco by subscribers, in a bid to keep pace with increasing demand for data services and grant the operators greater flexibility for future upgrades. Ericsson will supply an end-to-end managed backhaul solution, deploying its MINI-LINK SP packet aggregation nodes, as well as network management system products. Under the deal, the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary will migrate from a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) platform to Multiprotocol Label Switching Transport Profile (MPLS-TP). TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that PTC claims the lion’s share of Poland’s wireless network, with 16.04 million subscribers at end-2012 equating to a market share of 29.6%. At that date its nearest rival, Telekomunikacja Polska (TP) had signed up 14.96 million users, translating to 27.6% of the segment.