Globacom has announced a roadmap to drive the future of Nigeria’s telecommunication sector, including a plan to introduce new data analytics tools to capture subscribers’ real time experience.
According to Sanjib Roy, Globacom’s Group Technical Director, the company has extensively invested in network upgrades, including swapping of legacy facilities. Roy said the firm is poised to have its best year ever in terms of quality of service, data speed and capacity expansion.
He added that the tons of network equipment that has been brought into the country during the past year has helped Globacom build a brand-new network with superior quality and higher capacity.
“Activation is looking up, traffic into the network is going up and consumption is up,” said Roy.
“A new e-band microwave radio technology has been deployed, resulting in increase in backhaul bandwidth to 1.5 – 2gb per link. More than 1800 BTS and equal number of NodeBs have been swapped in Lagos, Oyo, Ogun and Rivers states. Also, supplied and deployed are 1,000 microwaves to modernise the transmission network to IP. The capacity of Glo 1, Globacom’s submarine cable, has been upgraded to 300G, giving huge bandwidth for mobile and Enterprise business.
“All these have been possible because of quick supply and effective deployment. We have also deployed more than 2,000 new generators and 6,000 new batteries to boost customer experience. Work is on-going on more than 1,000km of fibre routes where road construction had affected fibre cabling.”
Roy said deployment of high wattage Radio Remote Units (RRU) for 3G services and multi-sector antenna had been concluded for better 3G indoor coverage, high speed data download, signal quality and network coverage.
Globacom is also upgrading the capacity of existing microwave links, converting TDM links to IP for 2G and 3G, and is deploying high capacity microwave back up links to increase data back haul capacity and protect traffic against fibre cut.
“We are using a scientific and methodical way of rolling out new sites based on feedback from regions on where the sites are needed to address customer complaints,” said Roy.
“We are also planning to rollout LTE in 1800 band this year in major cities to increase our 4G LTE penetration and allow higher handset adoption in order to enable the masses to harness the future. New enterprise products that will help SMEs and businesses in rural areas to grow in a digital environment are also in the works. New sites will also be built in rural areas to bridge the digital divide between cities and villages.”
Globacom is set to execute a conceptual launch of 5G in 700mhz band for an Internet of Things application this year.
