Uganda Telecom signed an agreement Thursday with Huawei Technologies to expand its existing Next Generation Network (NGN), an investment of more than US$10 million by Uganda’s second national operator.
“Being the only telecom company with an NGN network will give us the competitive advantage of being able to flexibly and cost-effectively offer cutting-edge products and services to our clients,” said Abdulbaset Elazzabi, Uganda Telecom’s managing director.
The agreement stipulates that Huawei will replace 33 analog RLUs (remote line units) spread across Uganda with new state-of-the-art soft switches. The current analog switching units have limited line capacity, and the new digital switching system powered by the NGN is expected to make switching faster and greatly increase line capacity.
Made up of a central information management center and a multiservice access network, the upgraded NGN network will allow Uganda Telecom to provide converged voice and data solutions over ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) via a single network.
Huawei will also supply seven new CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) landline sites and transfer existing sites from a wireless loop to the NGN.
“This project will increase the Uganda Telecom’s network capacity as well as improve the reliability of our fixed services,” Elazzabi explained.
The NGN expansion is scheduled for completion by the end of September 2009.
