Fastlink, in cooperation with Siemens and Motorola, is executing a series of expansion projects upwards of $120 million to enhance the capacity and quality of Fastlink's network. The company is putting into operation five new cell sites each day and by the end of August Fastlink's capacity is expected to exceed 1.2 million mobile subscribers.
Fastlink is positioned as the largest communications company in Jordan, allocating significant investment for further expanding and upgrading the network technology to maintain the present growth rate. The level of cellular usage has doubled between 2001 and 2002.
Works on the first phase were completed by mid-year and the company is now in the midst of the second phase, which is set to ultimately increase the number of cell sites to 1,500. This raises the number to more than double the cell sites available at the beginning of 2002, which will provide the network capacity with over 1.2 million subscribers, thus surpassing the expected figure for the end of the year.
Current projects include four areas: expanding the Switching Sub-Systems (SSS), expanding the Intelligent Network, bolstering cell sites and upgrading the voice quality of the network. SSS has witnessed a growth rate of more than double during the year to include today a total of seven Mobile Switching Centers (MSC), two transit-switches known as GATEWAY and two Home Location Registers (HLR).
A joint team of Fastlink engineers and Siemens experts are currently upgrading the central processing units (CPU) of all Switches, replacing them with PowerCP processors, with the aim to double the efficiency and minimize load and the possibility of CPU usage spikes. Jordan is third after China and South Africa to introduce such advanced technology.
Fastlink is currently enhancing the capacity of the Intelligent Network, which services pre-paid subscribers, through a series of upgrading programs for the two existing networks and through the introduction of a third Intelligent Network. These expansion plans involve work on enhancing the speed of Intelligent Networks, along with launching new services for pre-paid subscribers including full international roaming and switching between services through the automatic service number 116.
Fastlink is currently installing and commissioning five new cell sites each day and will add by the end of next month 800 new stations, to the 700 existing stations in the Kingdom. Fastlink thus introduced a network structure that incorporates two new layers—a macro and micro-cellular layer.
Expansion plans are also directed towards improving the quality of voice through upgrading the echo-canceling features in all cellular network systems and not just in the switch sub-systems. Work is being carried out on removing interference in frequency channels in coordination with the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, as well as governmental and private sectors that use airwaves.
Fastlink had secured an agreement with Motorola to supervise the network's performance and to introduce improvements, whereby a large number of Motorola's experts have been working for some time with Fastlink's engineers in the framework of this important long term task. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
