Nigeria’s largest mobile phone company, MTN Nigeria says it has completed the commercial rollout of cheaper voice and mobile broadband services for Rural Nigeria.
MTN Nigeria says the services built in partnership with Chinese equipment supplier, Huawei, will herald the much-anticipated solution providing low-cost long-distance voice and mobile broadband services for remote rural areas across the country.
The RuralStar 2.0 solution helps link previously unconnected communities, voice and data traffic of new deployed RuralStar 2.0 sites exceed expectation, revealing the enormous telecommunications demand in rural Nigeria, the companies say in a statement announcing the completion of the service.
Nigeria has a population of 186 million with more than half living in rural villages, which are typically scattered around vast grasslands or forests.
According to the companies, the mobile signal coverage in Nigeria is poor and many people cannot enjoy the convenience of modern mobile communication. In some cases, some villagers have to walk lengthy distances to make a call in the town.
According to the companies, the mobile signal coverage in Nigeria is poor and many people cannot enjoy the convenience of modern mobile communication. In some cases, some villagers have to walk lengthy distances to make a call in the town.
Cao Ming, Vice President of Huawei Wireless Network Product Line believes that “everyone has the right to access the Internet. We are glad to see RuralStar improves villagers’ living standard.”
He said that RuralStar aims to create a healthy business ecosystem and connect the unconnected in emerging markets. “Huawei will work with the industry to eliminate the digital divide in emerging markets so that more people can enjoy the convenience brought by wireless communications and mobile Internet.”
With the joint effort of MTN and Huawei Huawei’s RuralStar 2.0 solution was introduced to reduce the total cost of ownership by 50% for a given target coverage area in contrast with traditional site solutions.
It allows site deployment locations to change from high towers to low poles with a height of only 12 metres using low-band Non Line of Sight Wireless Long Term Evolution (NLOS LTE) Relay that reduces the site infrastructure construction cost by 70 percent, the company says.
In addition, low-band LTE Relay allows for the single-hop transmission distance of up to 40 km, and therefore can be used as a substitute for microwave transmission and costly traditional satellite narrowband transmission.
RuralStar 2.0 uses low power consumption equipment enabling pure solar energy for the power supply, according to Huawei.
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