LM Ericsson Telefon AB has won a two-year, $127m contract with Telia AB, the largest Swedish telecoms operator, to provide AXE switching equipment for the latest upgrade to Telia’s network. Telia, which already claims to have one of the most modern networks in the world plans to offer further advanced services to its customers, and will start work on the upgrade immediately, expecting all of its exchanges to be offering the new functionality by the end of April 1999. Ericsson will be upgrading the data processing power of the AXE switches, which will result in a higher capacity for the Telia network along with the new functionality. The deal follows on from a $30m order for AXE switches and upgrades back in 1996 (CI No 2,995). Last year, Ericsson announced plans to expand the AXE range to handle voice, data and Internet traffic from the same platform (CI No 3,231).
