Alcatel wins contract for GSM network in Congo

PARIS: French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel has won a five-year contract

worth more than 145 million euros to build a GSM mobile phone network for

Vodacom in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Alcatel said on Thursday.

Alcatel said it would supply Vodacom Congo with its Evolium solution,

including a radio access network and mobile switching centers, enabling the

South African operator to enhance an existing GSM infrastructure in the war-torn

country with products compatible with new mobile technologies.

Alcatel already supplies GSM networks to some 36 African countries.

Vodacom, Africa's biggest mobile carrier with operations in Tanzania and

Lesotho and bidding for a mobile license in Zambia, said last December it was

teaming up with Congolese Wireless Networks to extend cellphone use in the

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The operator is half owned by South African state-controlled fixed-line

monopoly Telkom while Britain's Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile phone

operator, owns 31.5 percent. South Africa's VenFin and Hosken Consolidated

Investments have 13.5 and 5.0 percent respectively.

The potential mobile market in the Democratic Republic of Congo is seen at

around five percent of the roughly 60 million-strong population, despite the

challenges left by a devastating civil war since 1998 in which more than two

million people have died, mostly from disease and lack of health care.