Nokia has been selected by Thai mobile operator, dtac, as its first 5G RAN partner in a three-year deal covering the North and North Eastern regions of Thailand.
With this deal, Nokia plays a key role in ensuring that dtac’s network performance is fully 5G-ready, enabling a faster rollout of new 5G services as demand grows.
Nokia has been in Thailand for over 30 years with the deployment of 2G, 3G and 4G networks and will now provide 5G connectivity that will support the country’s efforts to digitize as part of its ‘Thailand 4.0’ economic strategy. The deployment is expected to begin later this year with completion expected in 2022.
The deal, which is an extension of Nokia’s existing partnership with dtac, will see an accelerated large-scale deployment of 5G on low-band spectrum (700-900Mhz) and high-capacity mmWave technology (26GHz), as well as enhancements of the existing networks utilizing 2300MHz, 2100MHz and 1800MHz spectrum. This combination will provide superior coverage and faster data speeds to subscribers.
Prathet Tankuranun, Chief Technology Officer at dtac, said: “We never stop improving our network and delivering better data experiences across a broad range of devices. Our current deployment leverages 5G-enhanced mobile broadband and 5G-ready Massive MIMO technology to bring improved coverage and higher data capacity to our customers nationwide.”