TDM, Alcatel-Lucent bridge digital divide in Mozambique

4 Sep 2009

PARIS: Alcatel-Lucent announced yesterday, 3 September 2009, that it has signed a €21 million contract with Telecomunicacoes de Mocambique (TDM), the Mozambican state-owned telecommunications company, to deploy the third phase of Mozambique's national transmission network.

Alcatel-Lucent recently finished the two first phases, laying 2,970 km of optical fibre across the country. Once the third stage complete, Mozambique will be equipped with modern and widespread fibre optic backbones that can interface with neighbouring landlocked countries and support Mozambican economic growth as well as social development.

Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will lay 2,585 km of optical fibre and deploy its optical transmission solutions to connect any remaining geographic areas. Scheduled for completion in 2011, the Mozambican National fibre optic backbone, spanning 5,500 km in total, will connect Mozambican citizens and companies to the worldwide submarine network and bring high-speed connectivity to provincial capitals across the country.

“This phase will conclude our nationwide project to build the Mozambican backbone transmission network, which is one of the most significant and largest telecommunications investments in our country,” said Joaquim de Carvalho, Chairman of the Board in TDM. ”The project's final objective is to link all of our provincial capitals via an optical backbone network, bringing Mozambique into the information and communication community, and bridging the digital divide.”

Alcatel-Lucent will provide TDM with a turnkey integrated solution including its optical multi-service transport solution for traffic aggregation, along with services including design, consulting, project management, installation of the fibre optic system, testing, commissioning, integration and training.

“Alcatel-Lucent's optical transport solutions will provide TDM with the capacity, reliability, flexibility and scalability to efficiently address the country's communication demands,” said Adolfo Hernandez, president of Alcatel-Lucent's activities in Europe the Middle East and Africa. “TDM's optical fibre infrastructure illustrates Alcatel-Lucent ability to deploy the relevant solutions the operators in the region can leverage on to offer new services and opportunities to the end-users.”