Chunghwa has awarded a contract to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to rollout the vendor’s Flexi Base Station and mobile softswitching solutions, along with a RNC and packet core solution, including CombiSGSN and FlexiISN, as part of the HSPA upgrade. Rollout of the kit will begin immediately and is estimated to be completed by July 2009. Deployment is expected to improve peak download and upload speeds to a maximum of 14 Mb/s and 2 Mb/s, respectively. Unstrung notes that Chunghwa is the first operator in Asia Pacific to test NSN’s ‘flat’ RAN solution based on an all-IP architecture. The operator hinted late last year that it had put aside US$4 billion to invest in its WCDMA and HSPA networks over the next five to seven years.

A separate report by Dow Jones Newswires, which cites comments from Chunghwa spokesman Mu-Piao Shih, claims that the operator is still in discussions to launch the 3G iPhone, which was launched in 22 markets last Friday. According to speculation, Chunghwa may launch the device in September this year, though both Chunghwa and Apple refused to comment on a possible launch timetable.