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Visafone plans Nigerian upgrade
27 January 2012
Nigerian operator selects Huawei for network upgrade to meet rising data services demand
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Nigeria
Visafone
Huawei
BlackBerry
Nigeria’s Visafone Communications is investing several million dollars to upgrade its network as it looks to tap the increasing demand for data transmissions.
The company’s CEO Sailesh Iyer told Bloomberg that Visafone has selected Huawei for a project which will start with a $20 million expansion of its broadband network in the business capital, Lagos. He added that the firm plans to update its other five networks in 2012.
“The future of the telecommunications industry is data as against voice,” Iyer told Bloomberg, adding that his company hopes to expand its services to 36 Nigerian states from 26 now. The firm also hopes to increase the number of its subscribers from 3.5 million currently to 10 million within three years.
Iyer confirmed that Visafone is in advanced talks with Canada’s Research In Motion to offer data and internet services using the BlackBerry. GTB
Further reading from Global Telecoms Business:
MTN to invest $1 billion in Nigeria 06 Jan 2012
Africa and Middle East to reach 18m LTE users by end of 2015 13 Dec 2011
Telkom South Africa looks at acquisitions 22 Nov 2011
Syntel signs Ericsson deal in effort to acquire NITEL 26 Jul 2011
Etisalat Nigeria buys 3G operator 03 Dec 2010