04 Oct 04

The General Company for Post and Telecommunication in Libya has signed a major contract with Finland's Nokia and French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel for the supply of two and a half million new mobile lines, in a project designed to broaden Al-Madar mobile Company's network.

The contract is singed only three days after Libyana mobile company launched its 60,000 mobile lines.

A company source said that the contract is worth within the scale of 175 million euros, and it will be executed in a period of twenty months, pointing out that the project network is the third generation which enables the customers to have access to the internet, and to send voice and images through the various mediums as well as purview of Satellite channels.

Under the terms of this contract, Alcatel will supply GPTC with its industry-leading EvoliumTM mobile radio access and core network solution to service 2.5 million GSM/EDGE and 3G/UMTS users throughout 75% of Libya.
Furthermore, Alcatel will develop and integrate for GPTC a complete portfolio of attractive mobile services to be run throughout the operator’s network over the whole country.

Nokia company would implement West of Libya networks from Tripoli to the western mountains, whereas Alcatel will implement east and south of Great Libya, the source added.

He said by the end of 2005, Great Jamahiriya will realize strident steps in the mobile system, so that mobiles will be 80 mobiles per one hundred people, a percentage regarded as high by international standards, explaining that the target of the Company in the field of the mobile system is to cover the entire Great Jamahiriya.

In his speech in the occasion, Eng. Mohammed Muammar al-Gadhafi, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Posts and Telecommunications, said mobile services will be available even to the most remote villages in Great Jamahiriya.

Five international companies competed for this project ending up with the selection of these two companies, he said.

Linking Great Jamahiriya through optical and fiber glass and cables with Europe would make it an important link in the communications between Europe on one hand and East, Central and West Africa on the other, he stressed.