Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Orange Botswana Choses Alvarion for WiMAX Project

Alvarion says that it has won a contract from Orange Botswana for a turnkey WiMAX deployment, using its 4Motion end-to-end solution. The commercial network built at the 2.5 GHz frequency band enables Orange Botswana to provide advanced data services to businesses and homes in Gaborone and Francistown, Botswana’s two largest cities with a total population of over 330,000.

The first network was launched in June 2008 in Gaborone – Botswana’s capital and one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa. Following this successful deployment Orange Botswana increased the coverage in Gaborone and launched a second network in Francistown – an important center for industry and commerce, in November 2008. Future extensions of the networks are planned in other areas throughout the country.

“WiMAX enables a whole new wireless broadband experience for our customers,” said Wilfried Yver Head of Internet Service Provider of Orange Botswana. “We are confident that Alvarion’s proven global expertise in wireless broadband technologies and commitment to WiMAX will help us bring superior Internet service to our end-users, now and in the future. Alvarion’s innovative technology and complete offering enables us to answer the immediate need for high-quality, yet reasonably priced Internet access in the urban areas of the country. Our subscribers are already enjoying the benefits of the technology and we are very interested in the new opportunities 802.16e WiMAX could bring to this market.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Alvarion is also providing Orange Botswana with project management and implementation capabilities including network planning, network dimensioning, installation, technical support and professional services.

Botswana’s population is nearing two million with one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world of just above 4%.

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