By Anil SharmaDigitel Mobile Philippines, which operates under the brand name of Sun Cellular and is one of the fastest growing mobile telecommunications providers in Philippines, has selected Ceragon (News - Alert) 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 Digital 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.
Compnay 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.
