UPC Cablecom, the Switzerland-based subsidiary of Liberty Global, has inked a deal to provide data backhaul services to Orange Mobile and the carrier builds out its 4G wireless network.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the two-year agreement calls for UPC Cablecom to connect more than 1,000 4G Orange masts to the MSO’s Carrier Ethernet network and provide speeds between 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps. The first 70 masts are set to be connected this year.
UPC Cablecom signed an MVNO deal with Orange back in 2011.
The contract with Orange is the biggest backhaul deal so far for UPC Cablecom, said the MSO, which launched its new-generation Ethernet platform, based on the Metro Etherenet Forum 2.0 standard, in the third quarter of the year.
“We wanted a real Layer 2 Ethernet service with an end-to-end quality guarantee and monitoring of our national sites including VLAN flexibility,” said Orange CTO Johan Hall, in a statement.
UPC Cablecom currently manages more than 1.4 million digital TV connections, serves 647,400 Internet subscribers and 447,300 phone subs.
