3G News Africa : A national CDMA network – provided by ZTE Corporation, China’s largest listed telecommunications equipment supplier and the largest local wireless supplier – is to cover 95% of the second largest country in Africa. In a contract announced today, ZTE is to construct a CDMA network for the three provinces of Tizi Ouzou, Bouira and Bejaia in northern Algeria.

This announcement follows construction by ZTE of two CDMA wireless local loop (WLL) networks, which cover 43 provinces in all eight districts of Algeria. The CDMA networks have revolutionised the communications situation across the country, from remote countryside to the densely populated cities. After the new project is completed, 95% of Algeria will be covered by the advanced wireless network from ZTE.

“This new contract reinforces our leading market position in Africa and represents customer confidence that ZTE has the capability to win, deliver, install and support world-scale projects of this kind,” said Mr Xiao Chunfa, general manager of ZTE Algeria.

The new Algerian network will involve MSS (Mobile Switching System), BSS(Base Station System), PDSN(Packet Data Serving Node), OMC(Operation and Maintenance Center), a repair centre, a training centre and a software support centre and will serve over 100,000 subscribers.

Earlier this week ZTE announced another major success in Africa as it successfully launched an intelligent network for Zambia’s national operator Zamtel. The network will enable a host of new services to be offered to the operator’s customers, including prepaid fixed line, virtual private network and freephone services.

This is the second significant announcement in Algeria by ZTE in the last four months: in October 2004 ZTE announced that it was to open a manufacturing facility in the country. In agreement with well-established local company INATEL, ZTE will manufacture wireless fixed terminals and other equipment in Algeria.

ZTE continues to increase its market share in Africa with products already deployed in more than 14 countries including Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia, Kenya, Zambia, Algeria, and Ethiopia. Earlier this year, ZTE beat all other competitor vendors to make the first ever 3G call in Tunisia; ZTE's GSM products have been used in large-scale applications in Nigeria and Ethiopia; and, also in 2004, ZTE was selected by Egypt Telecom to construct a large-scale CDMA network covering the Nile River Delta.

ZTE has a full package of proprietary CDMA products, and is capable of delivering solutions for various commercial applications. As the leading Chinese CDMA brand, ZTE’s CDMA communications system can operate at various frequency bands: 450M, 800M, 1.9G and 2.1G. ZTE has recently launched new products and value-added services, including CDMA products on an all-IP platform for 3G, a CDMA-based radio digital trunking communication system (GOTA), an encryption communication system, the CDMA 1X system, the GSM 1X system, and a CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO system.