Telecom equipment maker ZTE announced its LTE deal with Digicel Group to expand 4G networks across its 26 markets in the Caribbean and Central America.

Digicel, which recently announced its Digicel 2030 global transformation program, aims to offer high-speed mobile broadband services to consumers and businesses across the region by deploying ZTE’s 4G LTE solutions.

ZTE’s 4G LTE solutions, including Uni-RAN, will help Digicel to upgrade and optimize its infrastructure as part of a network transformation program. On top of this, Digcel’s customers will be getting superior mobile Internet connectivity and coverage. ZTE Uni-RAN solutions will support Digicel’s network evolution by enabling deployment of next-generation digital services and business innovations.

ZTE said its Uni-RAN solution increases the network operation efficiency by prolonging the lifecycle of devices through network upgrades and smooth evolution. Based on ZTE’s software defined radio (SDR) technology, Uni-RAN protects operators’ investment and dramatically reduces network costs and increases the stability and reliability of network operation.

Meanwhile, ZTE announced the transmission of single-carrier PM-256QAM signals at 34-Gbaud over a distance of 80km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) for the first time.

ZTE verified that constellation shaping technology can greatly enhance 400G 256QAM transport performance. This set a new world record in 400G single-carrier signal transmission and laid a solid foundation for the research of high-speed single-carrier optical transmission technologies.

ZTE has helped large operators in Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America build more than 300 100G networks. The total length of fibers used for building the network is over 300,000km. According to Ovum, ZTE ranked in the top two in the global optical network market.