NBN Co has granted Ericsson a twelve-month contract to roll out a TD-LTE network to serve the four percent of locations scheduled for wireless coverage in NBN Co's business plan. The one year deal could be worth up to $1.1b over 10 years.

Under the agreement, Ericsson will provide the LTE network which includes radio access, core and transmission as well as related service. Furthermore, Ericsson is expected to design, build, operate and maintain NBN Co's network end-to-end, including business support systems. Network operations will hand over from Ericsson to NBN Co after the initial agreement with Ericsson is completed.

"NBN Co has initially entered into a turnkey arrangement for at least 12 months to enable a fast start to construction and delivery. Over time NBN Co intends to assume greater responsibility for construction and operation of this world-leading infrastructure," NBN Co explained.

Reports from the ZDnet.com say, the network will operate in 2.3GHz spectrum recently acquired by NBN Co from Austar. Although the technology is identical to that used in TD-LTE mobile networks being rolled out in other countries - and will use the same multiservice RB6000 Ericsson base station as Ericsson is supplying for Telstra's FD-LTE rollout - it will be a fixed service operating to fixed external antennas - flat plates about the size of an A4 sheet of paper - mounted on the outside of customers' premises.

Ericsson will develop customer premises equipment dubbed by the Network Terminating Device (NTD) to NBN Co specifications. It will have four gigabit ethernet ports, but unlike the NTU for the fibre network it will not have an analogue telephone port.

NBN Co is taking over responsibility for the Universal Service Obligation in FTTH areas. It will provide the standard telephone service over fibre, but in wireless and satellite areas the USO remains with Telstra and will continue to be delivered on Telstra copper or other technology supplied by Telstra.

After the contract signing at NBN Co's Sydney office this morning, Ericsson ANZ’s head, Sam Saba, said that work would start "this afternoon." The first services are scheduled to be available from the middle of next year, and the entire network to be completed by 2015.