Nigeria’s second largest mobile operator Econet Wireless Nigeria has signed a $110-million network expansion deal with Swedish equipment provider Ericsson, company executives said on Monday.
”When completed, the expansion will result in greater geographical coverage for the operator to double its network capacity,” an Econet official quoted Ericsson’s spokesperson James Borup as saying.
He said the Swedish company would deliver radio network equipment to Econet, which began operation in Africa’s most populous country in August 2001 along with another South Africa-based operator MTN.
Borup said the project will give Econet a flexible and robust network that would sustain rapid subscriber growth and help introduce new services. Econet currently has around one million subscribers on its network nationwide, coming second to MTN with 1,6-million.
Since their launch three years ago, two other operators — state-run Nitel and private firm Globacom — have been licenced to provide digital mobile services to this communications-starved west African country.
Although the firms’ expansions have been extremely rpaid, analysts believe there is still huge room for expansion in a country of 126-million people. – Sapa-AFP