Globacom completes $1.25bn IP network upgrade

Nigeria's second national telecoms operator Globacom, is on the verge of completing its cits $1.25bn internet protocol (IP) network. The massive network improvement project, which commenced in April last year, which commenced in April last year.which will end in few months, will see all its base transceiver stations (BTSs) data enabled and on third generation 3G high-speed broadband access. Globacom signed 2013 a $500 million deal with Chinese equipment vendor, ZTE, to upgrade its infrastructure nationwide for efficient service delivery. The telecoms giant also signed another $750 million agreement with Huawei Technologies, a leading global ICT solutions provider, to expand the capacity of its network. This brings the total value of the facilities upgrade contract to $1.25 billion. Head of operations Globacom, Mr Bisi Koleosho, said all the equipment are being completely changed.

The operator is swapping its sites with modern base stations and switches to have 100 per cent quality of services. About 3,000 sites have been upgraded to the 3G standard; this will bring IP transmission and huge bandwidth to glo subscribers. According to him, the quality of the network will improve significantly as 43 per cent of the sites are now on data. Globacom is replacing the old second generation (2G) sites with 3G sites and has placed order for 100 Gigabyte fibre optic backbone to position itself in the emerging big data era which is seeing massive data transmission on networks courtesy of social media driven mobile phones and tablet and notebook communications.

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