Zimbabwe's Econet Wireless says that equipment for its expansion program to upgrade network capacity from 800,000 to 1.2 million customers is expected to arrive in Zimbabwe next month and installation should take at least three months to complete. Chief Executive Officer Douglas Mboweni said in a statement the equipment has been ordered from Ericsson and ZTE which early this year won the contract to supply equipment for Econet's expansion, the third such major project it has undertaken in less than two years, and one of the largest investments ever made by a single company in the country in the same period.
Econet announced early this year that it had secured offshore funding to finance the expansion programme that will see its network capacity being increased by the end of February 2008.
Mr. Mboweni said the company's board had already directed that the expansion should not be suspended despite the current low tariffs because the project would be funded offshore and not from local resources. He said although the 900% tariff cut imposed on the industry in June had severely strained the company's capacity to carry out expansion work, funding for the equipment had already been sourced from outside the country long before the tariff cuts.
"Equipment ordered from Sweden and China is due to start arriving next month and installation will take at least three months to complete. Our biggest problem is that we are no longer generating enough surplus cash to fund local work such as construction. It means it will take us much longer to put the equipment to work, but we are determined to do everything possible to get that additional capacity on our network," said Mr. Mboweni.
Ericsson is providing equipment to expand the core network which is made up of the switching systems, Intelligent Network platforms, prepaid systems, as well as new base stations in Harare, Mashonaland and Manicaland; whilst ZTE is supplying radio base stations for the southern part of the country, covering such parts as Bulawayo urban and its environs, Masvingo, Midlands, and the Matabeleland provinces. The Chinese company will also build new sites in remote rural areas as well as along the national highways.
Posted to the site on 26th August 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/25648.php