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Nigerian operator selects Nortel |
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Thursday, 26 June 2008 |
Multi-Links Telecommunications Ltd., one of
Nigeria's leading service providers, has entered into a three-year frame contract with Nortel to expand and upgrade its wireless network. The initial phase of the contract has been awarded and is valued at US$45 million. The enhanced network will use Nortel's CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev A solution to bring high-speed mobile broadband services to Multi-Links' growing subscriber base in the metropolitan region of Lagos, the prime economic center of the country.Lagos is the most populous urban area in Africa with more than eight million people and Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a population of over 140 million. However, even with large numbers of potential subscribers, the country has an Internet penetration of only 6.75%, according to International Telecommunications Union statistics.
Nigeria is listed by Goldman Sachs as one of the "Next Eleven economies with high growth potential, and is one of the fastest growing in the world according to the International Monetary Fund. Nortel's 1xEV-DO Rev A solution will give Multi-Links the network capacity to grow its subscriber base by bringing wireless communications to more people in
Lagos. This broader network coverage is expected to fulfill subscriber demand of people in
Nigeria for access to the internet from work, home and on the move.
The combination of next-generation network components provided by Nortel will allow Multi-Links to reliably serve more customers on the same spectrum while delivering advanced broadband services that can enhance the end user experience and increase subscriber loyalty. The new Nortel network will be based on upgrades to Multi-Links' current network assets thereby maximizing the value of their prior investments and providing a simple and cost-effective evolution path to 1xEV-DO Rev A. The faster data rates offered by 1xEV-DO Rev A (up to 3.1Mbits/s in the forward link and 1.8Mbits/s in the reverse link) combined with Nortel's high Quality of Service (QoS) will support 3G services such as video-on-demand, large file uploads/downloads and high performance push-to-talk/see capability.
www.nortel.com |
