Airtel completes NTP in Africa

Bharti Airtel ("Airtel") has said that it has undertaken an end-to-end network transformation program (NTP) across its mobile operations in 16 African countries. This program, in partnership with Ericsson, involved a comprehensive upgrade and expansion of network elements on all of Airtel’s African operations, including switching, radio, network management, data, charging, and consumer-services platforms and systems.

 

This network transformation program, under which Ericsson has deployed latest wireless technologies, will enhance Airtel’s network capacity and help deliver best-in-class services to customers at affordable rates. This also makes Airtel’s networks fully ready for next- generation services that include high-speed data and value-added services.

 

In addition, a full upgrade of the charging platforms across all operations was implemented introducing the latest version of Ericsson’s Charging System, enabling Airtel to offer subscribers new and innovative value-added services such as mobile wallets. This project will result in Airtel’s 60+ million customers having a better experience on their networks.

 

Eben Albertyn, Chief Technical Officer, Airtel Africa, said, "Customer is at the core of everything we do at Airtel. The implementation of this transformation program will enable us to further enrich our customer experience across the region. It allows us to provide Airtel subscribers with the best network possible while meeting the growing usage of mobile data. Our long-standing relationship with Ericsson gave us confidence in their ability to manage and deliver such a large and complex project."

 

Backed by 12,000 consulting and systems integration professionals across the world, over one hundred resources worked onsite to ensure successful delivery of this complex project - the largest network modernization program in Africa’s telecom history. Ericsson's systems integration organization delivers more than 1,500 systems integration projects per year in multi-vendor and multiple-technology environments.