Bahrain Telecom Company (Batelco) announced Wednesday it would sign a contract with Swedish telecom giant Ericsson to expand Bahrain’s mobile phone network to meet huge demand, reported the Gulf Daily News.
The plan is to increase the current network capacity to meet the increasing demand on mobile lines, said Batelco’s corporate public relations manager, Ali Sahwan.
He said the project would be executed in phases over about 18 months.
In February, Batelco said it had signed two deals with Ericsson to expand and upgrade the network.
The expansion program, which was to increase Batelco’s GSM capacity to 320,000 from 230,000, was due to be implemented by June.
Sahwan said demand for mobile phone lines in Bahrain rose by 65 percent in 2000.
The company estimates that 33 percent of the country’s 666,000 population use mobile phones, said the paper – Albawaba.com
