By Technology Times Reporter

Lagos. June 26, 2008. Multi-Links Telecommunications Ltd., one of the nation’s leading telecoms company has signed a three-year contract with Nortel to expand and upgrade its wireless network for broadband services.

Nortel announced that the initial phase of the contract has been awarded and is valued at US $45 million under what Multi-Links cites as its aggressive plan to provide 80 and 100 per cent coverage of Nigeria by 2011 and 2013 respectively.

Multi-Links, which recently announced it crossed the one million subscriber mark will see its enhanced network using Nortel's CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev A solution to bring high-speed mobile broadband services to its subscriber base in Lagos.

Under the new deal, Nortel's technology will give Multi-Links the network capacity to grow its subscriber base by bringing wireless communications to more people in Lagos. This broader network coverage is expected to fulfil subscriber demand of people in Nigeria for access to the internet from work, home and on the move, the company says.

CEO, Multi-Links, Justin Ramaiya says, "Multi-Links has begun an aggressive rollout programme to increase network capacity with plans to provide broadband coverage for 80 percent of the Nigerian population by 2011 and 100 percent of the population by 2013."

He adds that "we've been working with Nortel since our early beginnings in 1996. With this deployment, Nortel is helping to ensure that Multi-Links can meet growing market demand in Nigeria for reliable voice and broadband services that will strengthen our competitive edge."

President, Nortel Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Michel Clement, says "Multi-Links will be one of the first service providers to bring mobile broadband services to consumers and businesses in Nigeria."

According to him, "Nortel is continually enhancing its CDMA offerings enabling customers like Multi-Links to improve voice and data services for their subscribers while putting in place the building blocks for evolving to 4G mobile broadband."

Nortel says the combination of next-generation network components provided Multi-Links will allow the operator to reliably serve more customers on the same spectrum while delivering advanced broadband services that can enhance the end user experience and increase subscriber loyalty.

“The new Nortel network will be based on upgrades to Multi-Links' current network assets thereby maximizing the value of their prior investments and providing a simple and cost-effective evolution path to 1xEV-DO Rev A. The faster data rates offered by 1xEV-DO Rev A (up to 3.1 Mbps in the forward link and 1.8 Mbps in the reverse link) combined with Nortel's high Quality of Service (QoS) and the Nortel Packet Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) will support 3G services such as video-on-demand, large file uploads/downloads and high performance push-to-talk/see capability”, according to the company.

The Multi-Links network will include Nortel's industry leading Enhanced Base Station Controller, EV-DO Radio Network Controller and suite of base stations that support 1x and 1xEV-DO Rev A. Nortel's base stations are designed and built with unique innovations in Power Amplifiers and transceivers which provide significant reductions in power consumption while creating a more environmentally friendly network that is less expensive to run.

Nortel will provide skilled resources from its Global Services to conduct the global project management from network design and planning to implementation, including installation, RF planning, commissioning and integration with other third parties.

Competition has stepped up in the telecoms market where Multi-Links is the pioneer private telephone operators and has expanded its presence to over 24 cities across the country.