Ericsson, NSN stop Huawei's LTE momentum in Nordic region

In what had to be a must-win for Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, TeliaSonera chose the two vendors as its primary suppliers for its LTE networks in Norway and Sweden. That development stymies the momentum Chinese rival Huawei has had in stealing major contracts in the Nordic region. It was thought Huawei would win a bigger piece of TeliaSonera's business given the fact it is building an LTE network for the operator in the Norwegian city of Oslo.

While Huawei will continue to build TeliaSonera's network in Oslo, Ericsson will provide the common core network, and Ericsson along with Nokia Siemens will deliver the radio access network for the network rollout this year and in 2011. Ericsson is already providing LTE equipment for TeliaSonera in Stockholm.

"Huawei probably sold the first part at an unrealistically low price," said John Strand, chief executive of telecoms consultancy Strand Consult, told Reuters, in explaining Huawei's loss of TeliaSonera's business. Or was it that Ericsson and NSN came in at very competitive pricing?

Ericsson and NSN have seen their fair share of embarrassments recently as Huawei has swooped into their own backyard to win contracts with the likes of Norway's Telenor and Tele2, as well as Telenor's joint 4G network in Sweden.

For more:
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article [1] (sub. req.)
- see this Reuters article [2]

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Nokia Siemens close to fourth LTE deal [4]
Norway's Telenor awards Huawei LTE contract [5]
Ericsson embarrassed in its back yard over LTE deal [6]
Vodafone draws Huawei into mobile core R&D lab [7]