Sun Cellular Selects Ceragon Networks 4G LTE

Digitel Mobile Philippines, which operates under the brand name of Sun Cellular and one of the fastest growing mobile telecommunications providers in Philippines, has selected Ceragon Networks, the provider of high-capacity, 4G/LTE-Ready wireless backhaul solutions, for 2G/3G backhaul expansion.

The Philippines-based company will invest an additional $9 million in Ceragon's mobile backhaul network equipment in an ongoing expansion of its 2G/3G cellular services.

Officials with Ceragon said that the newest Digitel order represents just one of numerous follow-on orders for the company, a longtime provider of high-capacity wireless backhaul solutions to Digitel.

Company officials said that the latest order puts more Ceragon gear behind a pair of expansion and upgrade projects for Digitel's 2G/3G metro network.

The operator's Manila-Cebu Alternative Backbone project will now deliver 3G services to the southern part of the country employing native IP over long-haul microwave technology, while its North Luzon Backbone Expansion project will bring additional 2G service capacity to the north.

According to company officials, both projects are part of Digitel's Ceragon-enabled migration to an all-IP Ethernet backhaul network that will better service the range of data, multimedia applications, and voice on the operator's expanded network.

'Microwave is an ideal approach to quickly and easily setting up the most cost-efficient and consistently reliable backhaul network,' said Patrick Lam, senior technical adviser, of Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc., in a statement.

Lam said that the company's Ceragon-based backhaul even withstood last year's devastating typhoon and flooding, making Digitel the only operator able to keep delivering vital telecom services to people in some of the devastated areas of the country.

'Reliably delivering a demanding range of 3G services and IP-based multimedia applications is a great challenge for operators today,' said Ira Palti, president and chief executive officer of Ceragon.

Palti said that with microwave clearly representing the most physically-resilient approach to backhaul, Ceragon looks forward to supporting the high-reliability demands of Digitel's expanding cellular networks for many years to come.

Company officials said that Digitel, which has relied on Ceragon for its backhaul network since 2005, purchased a mix of traditional TDM and IP-based systems from Ceragon, including the TDM-based FibeAir 3200T, a high-capacity wireless system; the TDM-based FibeAir 1500R, high-capacity SDH/SONET wireless system; and the FibeAir IP-10, which combines IP and TDM networking for risk-free migration to IP.

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Sun Cellular Interconnection with Smart Completed

MANILA, Philippines - Sun Cellular subscribers may now experience better services after the firm completed a P71-million interconnection project with Smart Communications, Inc.

"The establishment of this resiliency or 'fail-safe' infrastructure gives Sun Cellular subscribers more reliable broadband connections," Rolando Pena, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Smart's Technology Group Head, said in a statement.

"The increased interconnection will also dramatically lessen, if not eliminate service down times," Pena added.

The project involved the creation of 16 interconnect links between Smart and Sun Cellular. The links, each with a capacity of 10 Gbps (gigabits per second), allow the two telcos to connect on high-capacity fiber optic cables.

Moreover, the interconnection project is also capable of carrying high-bandwidth services such as 4G HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access Plus) and 3G HSPA, apart from 2G services voice and SMS (Simple Message Service).

PLDT completed its acquisition of Sun Cellular in October 2011. Sun Cellular has been kept as a separate brand of the dominant telco alongside PLDT's wireless arm Smart.

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WiMAX Will Outpace LTE in Next Few Years?

According to a recent report by In-Stat, people are shifting focus from wireless 4G technology and ultra-mobile broadband (UMB) to LTE and WiMAX.

Both 4G technologies, meaning those technologies that are expected to meet the requirements of IMT-Advanced, are not even close to becoming available commercially In-Stat reports.

LTE Advanced and 802.16m WiMAX are being tailored to offer 100Mbps mobile throughput and 1Gbps stationary throughput. These extremely high throughput capabilities are predicted to be an important part of the ITU’s IMT-Advanced requirements.

"Mobile WiMAX effectively came on the scene in 2006 with South Korea’s WiBro; the earliest commercial LTE deployment will be in 2009," says Gemma Tedesco, In-Stat analyst. "Overall, In-Stat expects that mobile WiMAX will ultimately outpace LTE over the next few years due to timing of network roll-outs."

In-Stat research discovered that the success of the Sprint/Clearwire mobile WiMAX roll-out should largely affect whether or not large worldwide operators will launch mobile WiMAX.

The high-tech market research company also found that mobile WiMAX and LTE will represent only a small portion of total 2G/3G/4G cellular subscriptions in 2013, with GSM/EDGE/GPRS expected to make up more than 55 percent of the total 4.8 billion subscriptions.

In addition, HSPA may become 802.16e WiMAX’s true competitor, and also may setback LTE rollouts.

In-Stat’s research report, "The Road to 4G: LTE and WiMAX Lead the Way Worldwide," covers the worldwide market for 4G wireless technology. It provides predictions for global mobile WiMAX and LTE by product type. It also offers an analysis of the developing marketplace for these technologies, including deployment plans of mobile operators.

Technology vendors, service providers, technology professionals and market specialists, worldwide, rely on In-Stat’s experienced staff and in-depth research to support critical business, product and technology decisions. In-Stat’s insights are derived from both a deep technology understanding and comprehensive research, which examines each segment of the value chain for each market.

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