Alcatel-Lucent to provide gear to Airtel for Africa operations

Alcatel-Lucent will supply advanced new IP (Internet Protocol)-based networking technology to support Bharti Airtel in delivery of new mobile broadband data and video services in Africa, Alcatel-Lucent said in a statement.

The deal size was not disclosed.

This new backbone network will support all mobile broadband services to Airtel's 17 affiliates across Africa - serving 60 million customers as well as interconnection to global networks including the UK.

The single international network will offer a more simple structure to improve performance, reliability, capacity convergence and interoperable mechanisms for faster service recovery, the statement said.

"The new network implementation not only provides a substantially improved quality of service for our current customers, it also does an excellent job of preparing Airtel Africa for future international expansion opportunities," Bharti Airtel CEO (International) Manoj Kohli said.