KENYA SPICE
SUCCESS STORY
Fastest Speed, Making a
Record in Africa
—YU set up its microwave transmission network at
the fastest speed
Overview
Customer Requirements
Complete its network planning, making the best use of the existing optical transmission and
microwave equipment.
Set up its network in a very limited period.
Solutions
Provide multiple solutions for the customer to choose the best one.
Set up a high-efficient delivery team and make plans to date.
Customer Benefits
Have its network best optimized and greatly save the operating cost.
Complete its network deployment in advance to seize market opportunities.
Econet Wireless
We are satisfied that system performed well and ZTE Products showed good
performance with high stability and reliability and interoperability. More of this,
we highly appreciate the excellent after-sale and maintenance service from ZTE
Corporation
—Arun K.Sarkar CTO of Essar Wireless Kenya Ltd
E
conet Wireless in Kenya is a newly developing operator.
It was hold by Econet of South Africa and now by
ESSAR of Indian with its GSM product called YU. Econet
Wireless began to deploy its network in 2007 and put it into
commercial use in 2008. Till now, its network is used in only
120 base stations, mainly covering Kenya capital Nairobi and
a port city Monbasa. Therefore, there is still a long way for
Econet Wireless to go to catch up with the major operators
such as Safaricom (hold by MTO Vodafone), ZAIN (MTO) and
Telkcom (FT Orange).
KENYA SPICE
SUCCESS STORY
Kenya
Powerful project delivery ability
On July 14, 2009, the first batch of microwave
equipment reached Kenya.
On July 16, 2009, the commissioning of the
first hop of microwave was complete.
At the end of July, the installation and
commissioning of 103 hops of microwave were
complete.
On August 16, 2009, the second batch of
microwave equipment reached Kenya.
Figure 1 Microwave topology structure for YU project (partially zoom in)
Customer Requirements
YU rented the optical transmission channel of its two
rivals with very high prices, which is like its lifeline is
firmly controlled by other people. The OPEX, as a result,
was very high. YU had to increase its tariff to balance its
budget and therefore lost a lot of potential subscribers.
Now, YU is in urgent need of a microwave transmission
network which can cover its original and new base
stations.
Due to some reasons, YU has lost lots of opportunities to
seize the market. It now requires a fastest deployment of its
network in the major cities of Kenya to save its time as much
as possible.
ZTE Microwave Solutions
Witnessing our comprehensive understanding of the
microwave network, rich experience in microwave design,
years of project experience and powerful project delivery
ability in Africa, YU chose us to help it deploy its microwave
network. Our solutions for this purpose are as follows:
All-Microwave solution
Our technical team put forward the best scheme by
designing the corresponding configuration and topology
structure based on YU’s existing network conditions. Through
constant communication and clarification with YU, we finally
came up with an all-microwave solution which could solve
YU’s network-rental problem.
In August of 2009, the installation and
commissioning of 180 hops of microwave were
complete.
In one month, our project team finished the installation and
commissioning of 283 hops of microwave where 180 hops
within 12 days with an average of 15 hops a day. This speed
made a record in project delivery in Africa, which shows our
powerful implementation and delivery ability in projects.
Customer Benefits
With our sincere service, we bring our customer the
following benefits:
Complete all-microwave solution, saving great OPEX for YU
Our all-microwave solution helps YU break the sieges of its
two rivals, recapture its lifeline and reduce its OPEX greatly,
and can effectively support YU in its later market expansion.
Powerful delivery ability, saving time for YU to capture
the market
Figure 2 Microwave antenna in YU project