Vodafone Australia turns to Huawei for network rollout

Vodafone Hutchison Australia has revealed it is teaming up Huawei to install new radio equipment at around 8,000 mobile base stations around Australia.

The giant network rollout will see incumbent suppliers Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson dropped in favour of the Chinese company. "Vodafone is... working with world-leading network technology vendor Huawei to replace 2G and 3G equipment at all base stations throughout Australia (which makes up the radio access network [RAN]) as part of its overall plan to improve mobile coverage and download speeds," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The company also apologised to customers for recent network problems and outlined a range of initiatives, both technical and organisational, to resolve them.

"The national 2G and 3G RAN replacement project will see engineers targeting the most congested and highest demand sites first," Vodafone said. "All radio equipment at around 8,000 sites will be replaced over the next 18 months. Current model mobile phones and mobile broadband devices are compatible with the new radio equipment, so there's no need for customers to do anything as we replace the equipment."

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Vodafone to overhaul entire network on ZDNet Australia.