T-Mobile & Huawei Develop Wireless HBB Services

SHENZHEN, China -- T-Mobile Austria recently signed a 5-year strategic cooperation agreement with Huawei regarding 4.5G-based E2E network upgrades.

This agreement was inspired by previous success with wireless to the x (WTTx) services. T-Mobile Austria is without a fixed network infrastructure; ARPU continued to decrease in mobile services due to increasingly fierce price wars and market competition. In order to overcome these operational challenges, T-Mobile Austria was forced to explore new avenues to revenue growth and reverse the ARPU trend. T-Mobile Austria partnered with Huawei to analyze user requirements, explore potential markets, and gain insight into the new blue ocean of wireless home broadband (HBB). In April 2013, both companies collaborated on HomeNet deployment and wireless HBB service development.

T-Mobile leveraged their powerful mobile network operational capabilities to deliver superior user experience over traditional fixed HBB networks from network deployment and rate guarantee to services and tariff design. Rapid HBB service development has led to a significant increase of HBB users. In a fiercely competitive landscape, T-Mobile Austria managed to reverse the trend in decreasing revenue. The year-on-year revenue growth of 5.8% as of Q3 2016 generated a positive business cycle.

WTTx service collaboration not only yielded financial results but also maintained excellent user experience of wireless HBB services, receiving positive feedback from users and industry peers. In Austrian Internet Monitor's (AIM) user friendliness evaluation held for mobile operators, T-Mobile was chosen as the most popular Internet provider in Austria, surpassing fixed network providers.

T-Mobile Austria scored a positive feedback rate of 89% regarding network experience in Q2 2016. In June 2016, T-Mobile Austria was 3-times most popular mobile operator in the country according to renowned German industry magazine Connect and appraised as a Top Service provider in recognition of their customer-centric philosophy in the annual fête d'excellence evaluation.

"HomeNet, our fast Internet for the home, has become the most important new product category for T-Mobile," explained Andreas Bierwirth, CEO of T-Mobile Austria. "We offer our customers fiber from the air without requiring complex line installation. Thanks to the rapid expansion of LTE, the mobile HBB market is strong. The rapid expansion in HomeNet user base along with B2B service development are poised to be the most significant revenue drivers for T-Mobile in the future."

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.