Africa's First EDGE Contract

Ericsson has been awarded a US$32 million contract to supply cellular equipment and services to Scancom, the leading telecoms operator in Ghana. The deal will see Scancom implementing GSM networking technologies, including WAP and MMS functionality over the African continent's first EDGE-capable network. The EDGE services will be available for clients that need added services in future.

Scancom, a subsidiary of Investcom, a holding company with subsidiaries in eight African and Middle Eastern countries is already commanding 67% market share in Ghana. It is growing steadily and expanding the range of services on offer to clients. As a result, it introduced last week a new numbering plan to cater for its soaring subscriber base and is updating its equipment to ensure it can effectively handle future capacity.

The new equipment order from Ericsson will provide the Ghanaian operator with additional capacity, new services to offer clients as well as an extra layer of reliability - and the potential to expand their network far beyond any other operational network in Africa.

The contract was signed in February this year and the company hope to begin rolling out the equipment in May. The deal not only focuses on the equipment sold to Scancom, including mobile system controllers (MSC) and base station controllers (BSC), but also includes the services required to ensure all equipment is integrated into the existing network and functions at peak performance levels.

The new deal is an expansion on the current exclusive supplier relationship between Scancom and Ericsson. The global communications organisation is also responsible for Scancom's training and network maintenance."

Posted to the site on 26th March 2004