Glo goes 3G

Nigerian cellco Glo Mobile, the wireless arm of second national operator Globacom, has successfully launched commercial 3G services in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. The infrastructure, supplied by French-US vendor Alcatel-Lucent, features UMTS/HSPA radio access and core networking equipment, and IMS-ready next-generation architecture, and is the first operational 3G network in the country. It was supplied under a USD600 million contract signed between Globacom and Alca-Lu in February 2007, which also included the installation of 300,000 fixed lines covering 13 Nigerian cities, and expansion of Glo’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE network capacity to 35 million users.