In a celebrative atmosphere of 10th anniversary of the foundation of Ericsson company in Sarajevo on May 10, 2006 Hamdo Katica, CEO of BH Telecom, the biggest operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Gordana Kovačević, president of Ericsson Nikola Tesla signed a packet of contracts whose value exceeds HRK 34 million. The realization of these projects will enable the roll out of the latest ICT services in the local mobile telecommunications market, which will lead to the increased satisfaction of the BH Telecom users.

"New contracts that we have just signed with BH Telecom shed a new light on our partnership and are, in fact, a continuation of development and upgrade of the national telecom network in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They will provide the citizens of this country with an access towards new communications technologies and functionalities aimed at faster and better communications that will enable users to obtain relevant information any time, any place", pointed out G. Kovačević.

In his comment about the new joint projects H. Katica emphasized the following:
"Over the last decade Ericsson has established a close cooperation with BH Telecom. We jointly contributed to the restoration, modernization and capacity upgrade of the national communications network in Bosnia and Herzegovina so that today it is one of the most developed networks in Europe. The contracts signed today crown our cooperation and form a platform for future development of the national ICT system in our country."

New contracts include capacity and functionality upgrades of SGSN/GGSN nodes in BH Telcom's core data GSM/GPRS/EDGE network. Ericsson Nikola Tesla will deliver to BH Telecom WLAN access equipment and they will integrate it into the existing GSM/GPRS/EDGE network, which will enable the most sophisticated applications and provide users with the fast and top quality access to Internet via the WLAN network.
In order to enable the full utilization of the expanded core data network the upgrade of the Base Station Controller (BSC) was contracted as well. It will support implementation of new base stations, which will additionally expand BH Telecom's network. Furthermore, new jobs include the integration of the software functionalities that will improve the quality of voice services, increase the radio network capacity and bring the performance of the existing BH Telecom's GPRS/EDGE network to a higher level. After the realization of the contracted jobs BH Telecom will own the cutting edge data services billing system. The BH Telecom users will then have full control over their accounts and they will be able to choose a data services billing model most suitable for them. The key BH Telecom's competitive advantage, however, will lay in the expansion and the integration of the centralized user and services base as well as functionalities such as user authentication and authorization, and automatic configuration of mobile phones.
The realization of the project covered by the latest contract packet between BH Telecom and Ericsson Nikola Tesla will prepare the biggest operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the new generation technologies (UMTS/HSDPA) enabling higher speeds and new services. BH Telecom's network is already ready for the implementation of IMS infrastructure in its core network.

Communication Ericsson Nikola Tesla