Alcatel-Lucent has signed a contract with Telefónica, to become a reference supplier for its 4G LTE network in Spain, company announced today. Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy some 8,000 4G LTE base stations and the 5620 Service Aware Manager (5620 SAM).

Alcatel-Lucent will also deliver installation and turnkey project management services in the initial phase of the project, as well as systems integration, maintenance and configuration optimization to reduce time-to-market even further for Telefonica Spain.

Agreement follows two successful pre-commercial 4G LTE pilot networks in Madrid and Barcelona and the demonstration of Alcatel-Lucent’s 4G LTE capabilities over a live network- consisting of small ‘metro cells’ and macro base stations – with  Telefónica in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2012.

Deployment complements Telefónica Spain’s existing ultra-broadband fiber network with the capacity to meet customers’ data needs today and into the future.