National Daily

Celtel network suffers collapse

ONE of the leading providers of Global System for Mobile technology (GSM) in the country, CELTEL Nigeria, over the weekend, suffered a network glitch that spanned approximately 24hours as a result of dispute over ownership structure. The glitch which telecoms experts attributed to internal wrangling rather than a major technical fault in the company's transmitting stations plagued the company's networks from late July 11, to late July 12, thus throwing subscribers of the network into a desperate situation. National Daily gathered that the development forced majority of the company's subscribers to switch to other mobile networks; MTN and Glo, thus putting the two in a difficult position as they encounter enormous difficulty coping with the unexpected traffic. Frustrated subscribers that spoke with National Daily could only recount their harrowing experience and the loss they incurred in their businesses and private lives.

An earlier statement from the company stated that the company has mapped out plans to improve the quality of service it renders to its numerous customers in the country.

Part of the plans is to double their switching capacity from 10 million subscribers to 20 million subscribers before the end of the year. The Chief Operating Officer, Celtel Nigeria, Mr. Lars Stock who disclosed this in Enugu last week during the official commissioning of a new switch station. Celtel had floated one switch station each in Abuja, Kaduna and Kano and would soon do same in Bauchi and Benin. Stock also disclosed that Celtel had doubled its base stations from 1,100 in 2006 to 3,400 at the second quarter of the year adding that 500 base stations were also built in the second half of the year to ensure full coverage of the six geo-political zones of the country.

He said Celtel has already embarked on a 4000 kilometre fibre-optic transmission project, the widest being executed in the country by Siemens Networks.