Mtel Increases its Network Capacity
Mtel, the Mobile subsidiary of Nigeria's state owned telecommunications outfit, has unveiled plans to increase the capacity of the network by an additional two and half million lines, a more than two hundred percent increase on the existing 1.2 million lines capacity. The lines will be in place in the next six months. The Board of Mtel, with Nigeria's Communication Minister Chief Cornelius Adebayo as Chairman, approved the "network augmentation" programme, involving vendor financing in September 2005.
The vendors are Ericcson, Huawei, ZTE, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens.
Mtel would have to build over 800 additional base stations as part of the programme. The firm currently has 500 base stations. In a statement, Mtel Chief Executive Mr. Edwin Moore Momife said the expansion programme is "to ensure Mtel continues to grow its customer base and provide better quality of service by covering gaps in the existing network infrastructure."
Mtel believes the programme would considerably enhance the capacity of the firm, which is currently number four in the Nigerian GSM market as well as enable the firm grow its market share. Following a massive brand roll out programme in 2005, the Orange Train, Mtel has run out of capacity on its existing network.
Mtel has put in place a tight project management capability around the network expansion to programme success. Mtel has created a 'Project Management Office' that will co-ordinate the programme and entrench a better vendor management.
The augmentation programme provides Mtel with greater capacity to leverage its EDGE ready network to provide corporate LAN/WAN services based EDGE technology. The Core and the Intelligent Network infrastructure will be expanded for an improved Network Quality of Service deploying a combination of soft switching and classic technologies by Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei.
In addition, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens will provide the rest of the Radio and Transmission Infrastructure."
Posted to the site on 27th February 2006