Airtel Gabon has selected  Ericsson as its sole supplier for the deployment of a new LTE network. The agreement also includes transformation of the existing mobile radio access and core network infrastructure. LTE 4G technology offers the capacity and the speed to handle a rapid increase in data traffic.

Nokia announced that it has received approval from the European Commission for its pending acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. The proposed acquisition was notified to the European Commission on June 19, 2015 and was cleared on July 24, 2015 without conditions following a Phase 1 review.

Alcatel-Lucent  and Vodafone are conducting the first European field trial of TWDM-PON ultra-broadband access technology as the operator prepares its network to address growing network data traffic and mobile backhaul demands.

Nokia Networks launches its IoT connectivity solution for LTE core and radio networks which makes existing LTE networks IoT ready. Operators can now prepare their current networks for the business opportunities of the IoT era and related machine-to-machine (M2M) traffic.

Shanghai Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, has deployed the intraband TD-LTE-Advanced small cell carrier aggregation in its commercial network. The technology is being shown live at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2015 using Nokia Flexi Zone Base Station

A group of 16 leading players in the field of telecommunications are joining forces to advance the development of a new air interface below 6 GHz for 5G networks under the project named “FANTASTIC-5G” (Flexible Air iNTerfAce for Scalable service delivery wiThin wIreless Communication networks of the 5th Generation). 

LTE World Summit 2015 was hosted  in Amsterdam RAI between 23rd June 2015 to 25th June 2015 in which 2,750+ attendees as industry leaders gathered for the world’s largest 4G and 5G conference and exhibition, the 11th Annual LTE World Summit.

Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel has selected Nokia Networks to roll out its 3G network in 5 new telecom circles and network expansion in 3 existing telecom circles*. Under the 4-year contract, the company will provide its radio elements and services expertise to power Bharti Airtel’s infrastructure.

Zain Saudi Arabia and Huawei, have announced the launch of the first commercial LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation in two frequency bands (Band 1 and Band 3) network in the world.

Vodafone is implementing LTE FDD/TDD carrier aggregation in commercial network in Portugal, anticipating wider terminal availability later this year. This move will allow the operator to combine the best characteristics of LTE FDD and TDD modes. 

Nokia Networks and Zain KSA today announced their successful completion of a pilot project using carrier aggregation to combine FDD-LTE bands 1800 and 2100 MHz. Conducted in the western region recently as part of Zain KSA’s network enhancement project.

​ABI Research estimates that there will be nearly 1.37 billion 4G LTE subscribers globally by year-end 2015, up from nearly 650 million in 2014. The company further forecasts that the LTE subscriber base will exceed 3.5 billion by 2020, demonstrating a 5 year CAGR of 20.8%. 

Nokia Networks recently collaborated with the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany to do research on 5G network architecture and also work closely with the university to study the changes that are required in the telco architecture going forward.

South Korea's telecom provider KT and Ericsson have agreed to strengthen their collaboration in the 5G evolution and to extend this to the Internet of Things (IoT). According to KT, operator is preparing to preview an innovative 5G communications services at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics.