STC, the largest telco in Saudi Arabia, has awarded a contract to trial an LTE network in the kingdom to Alcatel Lucent.
The fixed-line and mobile phone operator awarded a similar contract to trial the 4G network technology to Ericsson at the beginning…
STC, the largest telco in Saudi Arabia, has awarded a contract to trial an LTE network in the kingdom to Alcatel Lucent.
The fixed-line and mobile phone operator awarded a similar contract to trial the 4G network technology to Ericsson at the beginning of March.
STC has not said how it will split the work between the two infrastructure suppliers.
It could ask the two companies to trial LTE in different parts of the kingdom given the country’s vast size.
Operators often split major infrastructure upgrades between different suppliers, said Peter Benedict, a spokesman at Alcatel Lucent.
“Often they are looking at several different companies before making their final choice,” he said.
Also at the beginning of March, STC’s rival Zain announced that it had picked Motorola to build an LTE network in the kingdom.