Nortel to upgrade Multi-Links’ cdma2000 network in Nigeria

Multi-Links Telecommunications has selected Nortel to expand and upgrade its wireless network in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in a three-year frame agreement.

The initial phase of the contract is valued at US$45 million and will use Nortel’s cdma2000 EV-DO solution to bring high-speed mobile broadband services to Multi-Links’ growing subscriber base in the metropolitan and prime economic region of Lagos.

Nigeria is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a population of 140 million people, eight million of whom live in Lagos’ urban area. However Internet penetration in Nigeria remains challenging at only 6.75 per cent.

It is expected that Nortel’s wireless solution will enable Multi-Links to grow its subscriber base and offer more network capacity to satisfy the increasing demand in the west African country for reliable voice and broadband services.

“Multi-Links has begun an aggressive rollout programme to increase network capacity with plans to provide broadband coverage for 80 per cent of the Nigerian population by 2011 and 100 per cent of the population by 2013,” CEO Justin Ramayia said.

Michel Clement, Nortel’s president of southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, said Multi-Links will be one of the first service providers to bring mobile broadband services to consumers and businesses in Nigeria, and that the cdma2000 EV-DO deployment would help put in place the building blocks for evolving to 4G mobile broadband.

Recently Ramayia announced that Multi-Links had recorded over a million subscribers since South Africa’s Telkom acquired the operator late last year. Telkom acquired Multi-Links in 2007, when the subscriber base stood at around 200,000 and barely seven months after the acquisition, that number has risen to over one million.