Angola’s Unitel SA and Ericsson have signed a three-year frame agreement for the supply of Ericsson Radio System solutions as well as core solutions and related services
Under the terms of the agreement, Ericsson will deliver a powerful transformation to Unitel’s existing 2G/3G/4G Radio Access Network (RAN) and core infrastructure and prepare the service provider for future 5G services in Angola.
The Radio and 5G ready core expansions will enable Unitel to meet increasing data demands of customers in the Angolan market. The agreement sees the expansion of the Ericsson’s packet core and user data consolidation network and readiness for 5G non-standalone services.
In addition to this, Unitel’s Business Support Systems (BSS) will be upgraded and enhanced to enable catalog-driven charging across its services and prepare itself for the introduction of innovative business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) 5G products and services. Using these solutions, Unitel's network performance will improve to meet growing end-user expectations.
Meanwhile, expansions on virtual Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) and Ericsson Media Gateway for Mobile Networks (M-MGw) are included for improving voice services, while, Ericsson Network Manager (ENM) will ensure better performance and faster time-to-market for new services.
Amílcar Safeca, administrator and chief technical officer at Unitel SA, said, “Our strategic goal is to stay at the forefront of customer experience and Ericsson is an excellent partner to address these requirements. This frame agreement will allow us to differentiate more our end-user offering and benefit from Ericsson's latest products and solutions.”
Nora Wahby, vice-president and head of Ericsson West Africa and Morocco, commented, “Africa is witnessing a digital transformation fueled by innovation of telecom services and solutions and the high demand for smart devices. This transformation requires networks that can provide superior performance to cater for the data explosion. Our collaboration with Unitel will pave the way to support and meet the ambitions of delivering best performing networks that can provide superior customer experience for Unitel Angola’s subscribers and this is part of our efforts to continue working with our partners to keep setting #AfricaInMotion.”
