Celtel-Nigeria and Nokia pool their resources

Mobile operator, Celtel Nigeria and telecommunications infrastructure provider, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) have endorsed a US$130 million (about N16,185,000,000) deal for network expansion nationwide.

Speaking at the ceremony held in Lagos on Tuesday, 9 October, the chief executive of Celtel Nigeria, Adebayo Ligali, said that NSN would execute the planned project for Celtel by building a 4,000 kilometres of Nationwide Fibre Optic (NFO) backbone infrastructure.

This, he also said, would culminate in NSN supplying best-in-class microwave transmission equipment to transform Celtel's best-in-class Internet Protocol (IP) technology.

According to Ligali, the contract represents a huge overall boost for Nigeria's telecommunications capacity and development, mostly with the urge to offer Next Generation Services, stressing that Celtel is now poised to make the offer a reality and available to the Nigerian population at all levels.

Ligali noted that "the deal is as a result of the long term investment in Nigeria's telecommunications market, which has seen the company maintain a consistent presence and commitment to Nigeria as one of its priority markets for over 50 years."

He described the deal as "a major milestone in our quest to build a robust infrastructure for the operation of our network so as to provide world class experience for our growing customer base in terms of coverage and quality."

He emphasised that the deal also depicts a fulfilment of a promise by Celtel parent company, the Zain Group (formerly MTC Group) to invest massively in the Nigerian economy as a partner in the Federal Government's effort to aggressively develop the economy and position it for the realisation of the 2020 Vision.

He described the contract, as a major accomplishment both in terms of expanding network capacity and improving Quality of Services (QoS) as well as the attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country.

He further expressed Celtel's delight to have NSN as strategic partners in this project given their track record of excellent performance and world-class products and services as well as excellent maintenance records.

"Definitely, this project when completed will put us well on our way to achieving the level of robustness and resilience that can guarantee the integrity of our network and provide a veritable platform for the provision of world-class services to our customers," he asserted.

Equally speaking, Country Director, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nigeria, Helmut Hochstetter, described the deal as a proof that, from the first year of its inception, Nokia Siemens Networks is already the number two telecoms infrastructure global player, and is commited to building Nigeria's telecommunication infrastructure.

"For this, we have the customer insight, innovation, global reach and quality project execution as well as the efficient costing mindset to present appropriate solutions suited to operators and their customer needs in Nigeria," he declared.

NSN, he added, looks forward to working with Celtel to provide an excellent, Next Generation Services network in the country.

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