T-Mobile has tapped Ericsson to help in the next phase of its LTE deployments. 

According to a press release, Ericsson has been selected to provide equipment and services to help T-Mobile improve in-building, highway and rural performance, and expand the availability of VoLTE services. 

Specifically, the contract is an expansion of T-Mobile’s 2012 network transformation project with Ericsson and includes RBS 6000 base station equipment, installation and integration of 700, 1900 and 1700/2100 MHz LTE-Advanced radio sites and tuning services. 

T-Mobile is deploying enhanced Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (eSRVCC) technology, which enables a seamless handover of VoLTE calls in LTE to existing 2G or 3G networks. As part of that deployment, Ericsson has delivered its Session Border Gateway (SBG) and Ericsson Media Resource System (MRS) to support voice handovers using eSRVCC. 

As T-Mobile expands its lineup of devices that can support handover of voice calls between LTE and Wi-Fi, Ericsson has enabled Wi-Fi calling through its evolved Packet Data Gateway (ePDG) and interoperates with T-Mobile’s existing IP Multimedia System and Evolved Packet Core network infrastructure.

To meet the growing demand for mobile broadband, Ericsson is delivering LTE-Advanced solutions to expand LTE coverage and capacity. These include carrier aggregation for delivering high-speed mobile data across the network, advanced antenna technologies for better coverage and cell data throughput, and small cell integration to deliver real network performance within heterogeneous networks, in addition to other LTE enhancements.

Ericsson has supported the majority of the world’s first commercial VoLTE launches and is the market leader in Evolved Packet Core with more than 150 commercial contracts in 70 countries and has more than 115 commercial IMS contracts.