SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Updated 14th January, 2008

MTN TO SPEND N100BN ON NETWORK EXPANSION

MTN has said that it would spend N100 billion on the up-grading of its installations this year. The epileptic services rendered by the GSM Company had been a major source of worry to its subscribers.

But Mr Karl Toriola, the Chief Technical Officer of the company, has blamed the situation on poor power supply and vandalism. He said that to improve on its services this year, the company would embark on the up-grading of the facilities which would include buying more switches and planting
more fibre optic cables.

He said that about 5 billion Short Message Service (SMS) are sent annually on the network. According to him, about 15 million text messages were recorded daily for last year.

He said 40 million SMS were demanded on its network for the New Year celebration, thus stretching its network. Toriola noted that the figure was three times the normal daily processed text messages of 15 million. According to him, about ten per cent of the text messages sent failed to reach their
destinations due to network congestion.

He attributed the increase on the use of texts to the 30 per cent drop in tariffs which was effected by the company in September 2006. He said that the growth recorded in the past six months on the network surpassed the first five years of its operations.