TeliaSonera has launched 3G services in Azerbaijan through its Azercell subsidiary. Azercell customers will experience mobile broadband up to 20 times faster than current 2G technology. The launch of 3G services in Azerbaijan means that TeliaSonera now offers 3G services across its entire Eurasian footprint.
The Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (Cyta) and Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications are looking into plans to construct the EUROPA cable system, linking the two countries. The new high capacity submarine cable would form a bridge between Europe and the Middle East by interconnecting with the ALEXANDROS cable subsystem landing in Cyprus and the IMEWE system landing in Lebanon.
The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable has landed in Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa. Orange says the cable-laying ship Ile de Sein has completed the laying of the cable up to the city of Abidjan. The landing in Côte d’Ivoire was made in partnership with Côte d’Ivoire Telecom. The ACE cable, which landed at the Pennmarc’h cable station in Brittany last month, extends for 17,000km from France to South Africa. It is expected to be ready for commercial service in 2012.
Hibernia Atlantic has announced an agreement with co-location data centre provider Interxion to host a PoP for its high-capacity fibre optic cable system at Interxion’s Dublin 2(DUB2) data centre. The companies claim that the link offers the only direct, submarine cable connection, between North America and Ireland.
Viva Bahrain has announced the completion of its nationwide rollout of 42Mbps dual carrier HSPA+ mobile broadband technology, ahead of schedule. The DC-HSPA service was launched by the company in May and offers a range of wireless USB dongle modems alongside home or office routers.
Orange Romania is planning to make €600 million worth of investments to keep pace with growing demand for its products and services. Orange is attempting a massive expansion of its 3G network from rural areas, with a project recently completed in Transylvania and others launched in Moldova and the city of Timisoara. The company intends to increase data transfer speeds and coverage in large towns where it has existing networks, and also to extend into smaller rural towns with no GSM signal.
Vodacom Mozambique (VM) has partnered with Huawei in a $16 million deal to expand and modernise the VM network over the next three to four years. By the end of the first year Huawei is expected to deploy 100 new 2G base receiver stations and 200 3G cell towers. Upon the conclusion of the programme Vodacom will have coverage in every district of Mozambique with 400 2G base receiver stations.
WASACE Cable Company Worldwide has announced plans for a submarine cable system linking the major markets of Africa, South America, North America and Europe. The cable system will deploy 100G technology and represents a total investment of billions of dollars. Investors for the project include international private equity firm VIP Must and the African Development Bank.
Telstra is planning to upgrade its Australian HFC cable systems to the Docsis 3.0 standard. The upgrade will be conducted on the company’s cables networks in the cities of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast. Connection speeds are expected to improve from 30Mbps to a maximum of 100 Mbps, with upgrade works expected to begin in December. This is despite an upcoming National Broadband Network deal under which Telstra agrees to decommission its copper and HFC Networks.
