Ericsson, the world’s leading provider of communications technology and services, can today announce that it helped M-Tel launch LTE services for its customers in Bulgaria in January 2012. This development followed the successful LTE demonstration in September 2011, and marked the first step towards the provision of high-quality mobile broadband services to more than 4 million customers, as well as the first launch of LTE services in Bulgaria.

Horst Pertl, CTO, M-Tel Bulgaria, says: “Deployment of LTE technology will benefit Bulgarian society as a whole. According to research, a 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration results in an approximately 1 percentage point sustainable GDP increase. That’s why M-Tel is investing in developing an LTE network.”

Maurizio De Dominicis, Head of Ericsson in Southeastern Europe, says: “Innovation is driven by people and Ericsson is the right partner to support M-Tel’s vision of contributing to Bulgarian society. Being first to launch LTE in Bulgaria is a great achievement for M-Tel and all of us at Ericsson are committed to supporting them in this new journey.”

In addition to supplying infrastructure, equipment and software, Ericsson designed, deployed and optimized the new LTE network. Ericsson’s unique combination of quality, speed and reliability continues to make it the partner of choice.