The initial phase of the contract has been awarded and is valued at US $45 million. The enhanced network will use Nortel's CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev A solution to bring high-speed mobile broadband services to Multi-Links' growing subscribers in Lagos, the prime economic centre of the country.

Justin Ramayia, Chief Executive Officer, Multi-Links said: "The faster data rates offered by 1xEV-DO Rev A (up to 3.1 Mbps in the forward link and 1.8 Mbps in the reverse link) combined with Nortel's high Quality of Service (QoS) and the Nortel Packet Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) will support 3G services such as video-on-demand, large file uploads/downloads and high performance push-to-talk/see capability".

"We've been working with Nortel since our early beginnings in 1996. With this deployment, Nortel is helping to ensure that Multi-Links can meet growing market demand in Nigeria for reliable voice and broadband services that will strengthen our competitive edge", he noted.

"Multi-Links has begun an aggressive rollout program to increase network capacity with plans to provide broadband coverage for 80 percent of the Nigerian population by 2011 and 100 percent of the population by 2013", Ramayia said.

Ramayia observed that the combination of next-generation network components provided by Nortel will allow Multi-Links to reliably serve more customers on the same spectrum while delivering advanced broadband services that can enhance the end user experience and increase subscriber loyalty.

Commenting on the partnership, Michael Clement, President, Nortel Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa said: "Multi-Links will be one of the first service providers to bring mobile broadband services to consumers and businesses in Nigeria."

According to him, "Nortel is continually enhancing its CDMA offerings enabling customers like Multi-Links to improve voice and data services for their subscribers while putting in place the building blocks for evolving to 4G mobile broadband".

The new Nortel network will be based on upgrades to Multi-Links' current network assets thereby maximizing the value of their prior investments and providing a simple and cost-effective evolution path to 1xEV-DO Rev A.

Nortel's base stations are designed and built with unique innovations in Power Amplifiers and transceivers which provide significant reductions in power consumption while creating a more environmentally friendly network that is less expensive to run.

Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, is a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Source:businessday