Movicel Deploys Africa's First Commercial LTE FDD 1.8 GHz Network

Middle East - March 1, 2012
Movicel, Africa's leading operator, has announced that it has signed a commercial contract for LTE with Huawei. Under the contract, Movicel will deploy a LTE FDD 1.8 GHz network in the province Cabinda--the most productive crude oil region in Angola. The network will be commercialized by the end of May this year and it will be Africa's first commercial LTE FDD 1.8 GHz network.

According to the company's blueprint, Movicel will provide mobile broadband services with a downlink speed of up to 100Mb/s across the entire country, starting from the high-value and dense urban areas such as the capital Luanda. Given the booming demand of telecommunications in the Angola market, especially the demand from big enterprises, the network is a necessary move to fully satisfy the market.

According to Mr. Yon Moreira da Silva Junior, CEO of Movicel, the move is also aligned with the expanding economy of Angola--providing a leading ICT service that will support the country's overall growth. On top of that, offering higher data speeds for the population will foster the economic inclusion of younger generations.

"Movicel is doing its share to pave the future of Angola and Africa with this state-of-the-art communication infrastructure. It will remove the gap between Northern and Southern hemispheres networks. The joint effort of Huawei's office in Angola and Brazil ensures the best resources to deploy this challenging and passionate project," stated Mr. Andrew Ge, CEO of Huawei Angola, and Mr. João Pedro Flecha de Lima, SVP of Huawei Brazil.

Based on the actual customers and traffic map, Movicel adopted from Huawei an end-to-end SingleRAN convergent solution including RAN (Radio Access Network), CN (Core Network), DBS (Distributed Base Station) and terminal devices. With the most advanced SDR (Software Defined Radio) technology, the network will simultaneously meet the subscribers' demand for both voice and data under different technologies (GSM/UMTS/LTE) with one single frequency band resource.

According to the latest Evolution to LTE report released on January 5, 2012 by GSA (the Global mobile Supplier Association), there are 49 commercial LTE networks launched globally and 23 of them are using Huawei's end-to-end SingleRAN LTE solution.

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About Movicel
Movicel is the pioneer in mobile services since 2003 for the Angola market. Movicel is one of the top mobile players in Africa, acting not only in the mobile market with millions of subscribers, but also providing mobile internet access with the well known Movinet brand.

For more information, visit Movicel online: www.movicel.co.ao

About Huawei
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Through our dedication to customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, we have established end-to-end advantages in telecom networks, devices and cloud computing. We are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers by providing competitive solutions and services. Our products and solutions have been deployed in over 140 countries, serving more than one third of the world's population.

For more information, visit Huawei online: www.huawei.com.

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