James Emejo
16 July 2008
Lagos — In a bid to boost services to its over 15 million subscribers nationwide, Celtel Nigeria, one of the nation's leading telecommunications companies, has inaugurated a new ultra-modern Switch worth $6 million in Enugu State. The switch, installed to service its South-east population is the fourth of such to be provided across the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Enugu State Governor, Barr. Sullivan Chime, who was accompanied by eminent personalities in the state, including commissioners, special advisers, community leaders and top management staff of Celtel, said development showed that Celtel Nigeria was indeed committed to its desire to making life better for its customers.
The governor, who said he is a Celtel subscriber, commended the network for its efforts to improve its services around the country through the initiation of several projects.
He also expressed appreciation over the decision to establish the Switch centre in the state, adding that this would go a long way to improving the quality of its service in not only the state, but also other states in the south east region.
Celtel Nigeria's Chief Operating Officer (COO), Mr. Lars Stork described the project as another milestone in the development of telecommunication in Nigeria, having commissioned three other switches in Abuja, Kaduna and Kano. He said additional switches would soon be launched in Bauchi and Benin.
He said Celtel has also initiated several other projects in the country in a move to boost the quality of its service to subscribers on the network, stressing that significant resources and effort in the improvement of its quality of service through capacity expansion and enhancement of the integrity and robust of its network have been put in place.
This, according to him include among other things, the construction of a 4,000 km fibre-optic transmission backbone- the widest in Nigeria, expected to be completed by mid 2009.
"Meanwhile, in order to sustain the integrity of our network and meet our customers expectations, we are currently leasing nationwide fibre-optic capacity across the country pending the completion of our own infrastructure. At the same time, we are expanding our existing 3,000 km microwave transmission backbone to 5,000 km", he said.
He also stated that work on the fibre optic cable that connects Port Harcourt, Enugu, Asaba, Lagos and Abuja was almost completed.
Stork also stated that the company has doubled its base stations in the country from 1,100 in 2006 to 3,400 at the end of the second quarter of 2008, with an additional 500 base stations built in the second quarter of the year to achieve full coverage of the six geographical zones of the country.
He said Celtel plans to double its switching capacity from 10 million to 20 million subscribers this year.
He said Celtel plans to double its switching capacity from 10 million to 20 million subscribers this year.
On the efforts been made by the company to overcome to the challenges of power supply in the country, Stork said the company has embarked on a massive generator swap out and dualisation project that would provide total of about 6,200 power generators by the end of the year.
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