Smartfren Telecom rolled out a TDD-FDD LTE-Advanced network in 11 cities in western Indonesia, including Jakarta.

The operator, one of the smallest operators in Indonesia with less than a 4 per cent market share, said it’s the first TDD-FDD network deployed in the country (utilising both unpaired TDD spectrum and paired FDD airwaves).

Smartfren, with about 12 million mobile connections, is using two equipment vendors for its network – Nokia Networks and ZTE.

Under the contract with Nokia, which covers western Indonesia, it has deployed the vendor’s core, radio and small-cell platforms and plans to add its virtualised evolved-packet core (EPC).

Smartfren last month said it upgraded its 4G network in Jakarta to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) with two-band carrier aggregation.

The operator plans to roll out LTE-A in 32 cities using both TDD (2.3GHz) and FDD (800-850MHz) frequencies.

It has contracted ZTE to deploy the LTE-A network in Central Java, East Java, Sulawesi and Kalimantan, and also plans to expand into eastern Indonesia.