L M Ericsson Telefon AB has strengthened its position in the Italian market via a joint agreement with Italtel SpA under which they will supply the national telephone operator, SIP, with a mobile telephony network: Ericsson is providing its analogue TACS 900MHz cellular mobile telephone system plus the AXE exchanges to control the system and provide links to the public telephone network; Italtal is to manufacture and install the radio base stations and a consortium has been formed between Italtel and Fatme, the Italian arm of Ericsson, to manage the project, which is scheduled to go live in 1989; SIP expects the new system to accomodate 200,000 subscribers by the time the pan-European digital version is installed in 1992, and is being introduced to cope with the congestion clogging the 450MHz system
