UTStarcom announced that it is expanding its cooperation with a mobile operator in Europe to supply an advanced networking platform in support of the operator’s 5G deployment requirements. In connection with the deployment, the Company also announced the release of the NetRing® TN704E metro access platform, the newest member of its SDN-enabled packet optical transport network product family. The NetRing® TN704E platform will be a key component of the mobile backhaul network expansion project with the mobile operator in Europe. Within the scope of the project, the newly released TN704E metro access platform, along with the TN705E metro aggregation platform will be used to optimize capacity across the operator’s metro transport /backhaul network as it prepares for 5G deployment. Phase 1 deployment has already started, and the operator expects to replace the current access equipment and modernize the existing transport network. Deployment is expected to be completed within the next three years. UTStarcom’s NetRing® TN704E is the newest high-performance product designed to help operators upgrade access domain of their packet optical networks to 10GE/100GE and efficiently address the growing need for bandwidth in metro networks. The new product delivers all the benefits of a connection-oriented MPLS-TP/CE transport network, sharing high reliability and carrier-grade feature set of field-proven NetRing NG-PTN (Next Generation Packet Transport Network) platform. At the same time, the NetRing TN704E is built on the same hardware as the SkyFlux SPN803S, the Company’s cutting-edge Converged Packet Transport platform, and shares a number of its advanced characteristics. The NetRing TN704E complements the NG-PTN product family and extends its target application scenarios by enabling very high switching capacity and 50GE/100GE interfaces support in the access domain of metro networks. It provides an excellent solution for bandwidth-demanding applications such as 4G/5G backhaul, high-capacity traffic aggregation of wired and wireless broadband access networks, or as a cost-efficient solution at lower layers of aggregation in MAN (Metro Area Network).