Nokia, Orange sustain major Africa LTE rollout

from ALEXIS DOUMBIA in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, (CAJ News) – IN one of the largest rollouts in the continent, Nokia and Orange Middle East and Africa are rolling out a Nokia single radio access network and management technology across seven African countries.

This is a three-year modernisation project in preparation for the launch of long term evolution (LTE) services.

Nokia will modernise around 11 000 radio sites in Cameroon, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Senegal.

To facilitate the deployment, Nokia has set up a dedicated West and Central Africa Support Centre for Orange.

Leveraging Nokia’s Single RAN technology and modernization services, Orange will be able to support existing 2G and 3G subscribers while enhancing speeds and coverage as it launches 4G services.

With deployment underway, Orange has already lowered operational costs and launched new 4G services in the above-mentioned countries.

From the dedicated Orange support center in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, Nokia is leveraging its expertise to deliver full set of services, including alarm, performance and configuration monitoring.

This is in addition to corrective actions on the radio installed base, while speeding implementation and optimizing the network to ensure more than 60 million Orange subscribers experience consistent high-quality service.

As part of the deal, Nokia Care Services ensure that service level agreements are met, thus ensuring flawless communications.