Posted by Jonah Iboma on
The subscribed base of MTN Nigeria Communications has risen to six million.
The subscribed base of MTN Nigeria Communications has risen to six million.
Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer of the company, Afam Edozie, disclosed this to our correspondent on Wednesday after the company opened its network management centre at Ojota, Lagos.
Only a fortnight ago, MTN released its 2004 results in which it announced that its subscribed base was 4.39million as at end March, 2005.
The attainment of the new subscription level is coming on the heels of the the company's adoption of a new numbering range with the pre-fix 0806, making it the first GSM network in Nigeria to adopt a new numbering system.
Constructed at a cost of over N3billion, the centre, which was designed by MTN Nigeria engineers, will provide constant monitoring and coordination of all network elements, aimed at ensuring better network quality.
During a media tour of the facilities on Wednesday, acting Chief Technical Officer MTN Nigeria, Mr Damoye Oyesiku, explained that the NMC would add value to its services through constant surveillance and visibility of the network with improved response time to fault resolutions.
According to him, the NMC deploys state-of-the-art software surveillance systems to collect, filter and correlate alarms from all areas of the network.
He said, 'NMC provides continuous nationwide network surveillance on a 24-hour, seven days a week basis. It enables us to have full visibility of what is happening on the network throughout the country from one central point, identify, diagnose, and resolve faults in the quickest possible time."
Oyesiku explained that the centre would add value to MTN's customers by providing constant proactive maintenance of all key elements within MTN's network.
He added that the new facility would assist in the reduction of network outages and ensure speedier airtime loads, improved voice quality and minimise delays in SMS delivery.
MTN Nigeria's GSM network consists of four key areas namely: Transmission, Core Switching, Value Added Services, and Power.
Oyesiku said that the NMC was a theatre where faults emanating from these core areas could be diagnosed and fixed.
He added that the centre could manage an average of 100,000 network alarms a day and meet a network availability target of 99 per cent which would help improve and stabilize the network quality.
Prior to the opening of the NMC, MTN monitored its network services through mini dashboards located at its switch facilities at Ikoyi, Lagos.
The Punch, Thursday June 23, 2005