China Mobile has awarded Alcatel-Lucent 24 percent of its overall EPC network, making Alcatel-Lucent the primary EPC supplier for the entire 4G LTE network. In September 2013, China Mobile selected Alcatel-Lucent to deploy 11% of their new LTE network, consisting of more than 200,000 TD-LTE base stations, by the end of 2013.
 
The Alcatel-Lucent Evolved Packet Core (EPC) is a high-capacity IP solution that sits at the heart of a mobile network. Consisting of the three platforms – data, mobility and policy – it provides an essential link between the end user and the scope of mobile communications they might wish to make use of.

China is now the world’s largest market for mobile data services and smartphones, increasing at a rate of more than 50 percent each year.
 
Under the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will provide a solution consisting of Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router - Mobile Gateway, Alcatel-Lucent 9471 Wireless Mobility Manager, o   Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Services Aware Manager (SAM)
 
China Mobile (CMCC) has more than 750 million subscribers, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the total mobile subscriptions in the country. CMCC is deploying TD-LTE to help meet the ever-increasing demand for mobile Internet, video and data in the world’s largest smartphone market.
 
Alcatel-Lucent’s supply of the Evolved Packet Core to China Mobile underlines the focus of The Shift Plan, the company’s industrial repositioning as a specialist vendor of IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access.
 
Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Deploying the Alcatel-Lucent Evolved Packet Core will enable CMCC to offer LTE customers blazingly fast speeds and impressive quality, while driving down the cost of sending information across the network.”