Egypt's Orascom Telecom (OT) has signed a deal in Cairo with France's Alcatel to supply equipment and solutions for OT's expanding mobile telephone network in Africa and the Middle East, the firms said Thursday, July 26.
Under the contract, Alcatel will supply and install GSM solutions, comprising radio access networks (BTS) and new generation Mobile Switching Centers (MSC), together with Intelligent Network platforms, Alcatel said in a statement received in Cairo Thursday.
The value of the open-ended deal, which company representatives said was signed earlier this week in Cairo, was not disclosed.
Vincenzo Nesci, the Cairo-based vice president of Alcatel Middle East, said in the statement that his company was committed to helping OT "succeed in its aggressive market strategy in the Middle East and Africa, minimizing the migration costs and protecting their investment."
In a spree that began two years ago, OT has acquired licenses and joint ventures spanning 20 countries in the Middle East, Southwest Asia (Pakistan) and Africa and serving some 2.1 million subscribers.
OT announced last Saturday that it landed the second license to install a mobile phone grid in Algeria with a $737-million bid. OT competed for the license with France's Orange, Spain's Telefonica and Portugal Telecom.
Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris and his family own about 60 percent of OT. The remaining shares are traded on the Cairo and London stock markets.
Paris-based Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to carriers as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. ― (AFP, Cairo)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
