Huawei beat Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE for Voda deal

Renai LeMay
Tuesday, 22 February 2011 10:41

Your IT - Mobility

Chinese giant Huawei beat European rivals Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson to win VHA's mammoth network replacement project, the mobile telco said this afternoon '” as well as compatriot ZTE '” in a hard-fought tender process which lasted throughout most of 2010.

Some had speculated that the deal announced this morning '” which will see VHA rip out all of the Ericsson and Nokia-based wireless hardware in thousands of mobile base stations around the nation and replace it with Huawei gear '” had come in reaction to VHA's well-publicised network problems in the closing months of last year, which may still result in a giant class action lawsuit from customers agains the telco.

However, in an interview this afternoon, VHA chief technology officer Michael Young said the deal had been brewing for some time from the middle of last year, and was actually inked 'just before Christmas', when the telco's network problems made the public eye. 'I can see why people would think that '” but we don't sign a few deals based on a few weeks' work,' he said.

Huawei, he said, had been chosen for the work after VHA went through a small request for information and proposals process with four vendors '” the other three being Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson, which both have existing relationships with VHA, and Chinese vendor ZTE, which has so far not manifested much of a presence in the Australian market.

Each vendor already provided services to one or both of VHA's major shareholders, Young said '” being Vodafone internationally as well as Hutchison Whumpoa. In the end, Huawei was chosen on technical grounds. 'We believe they are the best in the world right now for that technology,' said Young, speaking of the radio access network component of VHA's network.