Swedish vendor Ericsson beat rivals to supply equipment for Czech operator CETIN’s 5G network, Reuters reported.
A CETIN spokesperson confirmed Ericsson’s contract win but did not provide further details to the news agency.
CETIN is part of the investment group PPF, board member Vladimir Mlynar said in a tweet “we will release more details as soon as we finalise the remaining legal formalities”.
Czech regulator NUKIB labelled products from Ericsson rival Huawei a security threat in 2018. The Chinese vendor has faced intense scrutiny from a US campaign to convince allies to not include gear from the manufacturer in their next-generation networks.
In October, the Czech Telecommunication Office confirmed seven interested parties were seeking to bid in the upcoming spectrum auction for 700MHz and 3400MHz-3600MHz 5G-ready spectrum.
However, Czech units of Vodafone and T-Mobile filed legal complaints against the regulator, hitting back against plans to add a new player in the market, in a bid to spur competition and reduce consumer data prices.