Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies scored a symbolic victory over its European competitors, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) by bagging a 4G LTE network upgrade order from Norway’s Telenor.

Telenor will now shun its legacy network built by Ericsson and NSN and switch over to the new LTE network from Huawei over the next five years. The deal value is worth $ 175.4 million and is valid for six years.

Other party to this deal is Starent which will supply the core network to Telenor. Starent is now owned by Cisco.

Telenor was blunt enough to admit that the selection of partners will help to reduce cost by almost 50%. Apart from this, Telenor said that combination of technical quality, reliability in terms of handling a large-scale equipment replacement operation, and commercial terms were the deciding factor in Huawei and Starent’s selection.

“This is the biggest upgrade of the mobile network in Norway we have ever carried out," said Ragnar Kaarhus, head of Telenor Norway.

In terms of deal value the $ 175 million contract may sound dismal. But the noteworthy point in this deal is that Huawei is seen consolidating its presence in the European market, a market till recently dominated by local players, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and NSN.

LTE market is rapidly picking in Europe as demand for high-speed wireless access is compelling mobile operators to quickly switchover to LTE.