Alcatel promises timely completion of Glo’s expansion project

Telecommunications equipment vendor, Alcatel-Lucent, has promised timely completion of the multi-million naira network improvement contract it signed with Globacom recently.

Speaking in Lagos, on Thursday, at a press conference cum facility tour of Globacom installations in assuring onward improved quality of service, the General Manager in charge of Globacom Projects in Alcatel-Lucent, Mr. Peter Schubert, expressed the commitment of his company to timely delivery of the key elements of the mega expansion project for Globacom.

“It is a flagship project and when completed, the Glo network will be expanded and modernized. Alcatel-Lucent is committed to Globacom’s desire to provide excellent services for its subscribers not only in Nigeria but also in its other regions of operation in West Africa,” he said.

The projects, he enlightened are aimed at radically transforming service delivery on the Glo network, which will see to the addition of at least 1,500 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) to the existing ones number over 5000 BTSs, nationwide and an additional 25 Base Switching Centres, so as to improve traffic on the network.

Also included in the multi-million dollar contract package, were four brand New Generation Network (NGN) Mobile Switching Centre (MSCs), which installation will increase the network’s switching capacity from the present 30 million to 45million.

These will assist Globacom beyond mere voice communication. For example, it will significantly push up capacity for other value added services such as upgrading the network’s Short Messaging Service Centre from 400 messages per second to 600 messages per second.

“It will also enhance Globacom’s 3G coverage in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, and extend coverage to various state capitals, while also increasing the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) capacity to 10 million data subscribers from the current 5 million,” Globacom official assured.

Affirming this, Globacom’s Executive Director, Special Projects, Mr. Mike Jituboh, described the Globacom expansion project as the most ambitious expansion project by any telecommunication network in the country and pledged highest assurance of the telco in its bid to offer excellent service delivery to subscribers nationwide.

Meanwhile, Glo fortnight ago, announced the enhancement of its Voice Short Messaging Service (Voice-SMS) with additional five new features.

The operator enumerated the latest features to include “Save, Replay, Forward, Group Messaging and Reply.”

Globacom’s Head of Value Added Services (VAS), Mr. Samson Isa, while confirming this, said a user could now save a Voice-SMS on his phone, replay it any time he chooses and also forward it to his friends and relations, stressing that the group messaging feature enables the subscriber to send a voice message to a group of persons.

According to Isa, complementing these are the skipping and validity features added to the service recently.

He explained that skipping enables subscribers to select and listen to any desired mail out of the lot in his mail box, instead of listening to all, one after the other before he gets to listen to the desired mail.

“With the service, the subscriber is able to skip some messages in order to listen to the intended mail,” he declared.

Isa also said that the Validity feature, avail users to save received voice messages for 10 days within which the recipient could still listen to them.

“This gives the subscriber the opportunity to read a message at his own time and at his discretion,” he said.

Recalling that Globacom had in February 2007 pioneered within the Nigerian telecom space the Voice Short Messaging Service, a package which allows subscribers to record and send a voice message to a recipient.

Isa emphasized that the service is a “talk” and “listen” messaging alternative to the regular “type” and “read” service provided by short messaging service (SMS).

“Glo Voice-SMS enables the user to add a personal touch to his message by recording his own voice and sending it to a recipient who in turn is able to listen to the voice of the sender. Thus the new service has the advantage of conveying the sender’s mood, passion and emotion along with the voice message, which the conventional SMS does not do,” he said.

Noting that with the conventional SMS, a subscriber could ‘type’ and ‘send’ his text message which is read at the receiving end, while the Glo Voice SMS allows the user to ‘dial’, ‘talk’ and ‘send’ the recorded voice message which is listened to by the receiver.


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