World Telecom Labs (WTL) this week announced that Interconnect Nigeria (ICN), one of Nigeria's interconnect exchange carriers, is now using its 2nd generation VoIP switches to transfer voice traffic between the country's cellular networks and ICN's VoIP network.
A media release stated that WTL has a long and successful relationship with Nigeria's interconnect exchange carriers which are using its 2nd Generation VoIP switches "to build new inter-city routes that can transfer very high volumes of calls with total reliability."
WTL will be discussing its contribution to Nigeria's telecoms market at the Commonwealth Broadband Forum 2015, hosted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), in Abuja this week.
According to WTL, its VoIP links are a very cost-efficient way to link Nigeria's cities which has traditionally been a very costly exercise. "It was previously more expensive to transport traffic between Lagos and Abuja than from Lagos to London," the company has exclaimed.
The new VoIP links are said to have accommodated more than 3 billion minutes to date and WTL believes the work done in Nigeria provides a blueprint for other countries in Africa "which are looking for ways to increase capacity and speeds, and reduce traffic on congested inter-city links."
WTL's 2nd Generation VoIP switches have been deployed at ICN's Network Operating Centre in Abuja to replace equipment.
"The price which Nigeria's interconnect carriers can charge for their services is fixed by the Nigerian Communications Commission. Therefore, the interconnect carriers compete on customer service and network reliability," reads the statement.
WTL previously installed equipment and helped ICN with the successful implementation of Nigeria's Mobile Number Portability programme which ICN runs on behalf of the NCC.
Jude Chukwuma, chief technology officer of ICN, said "We engaged with WTL since 2007 and are happy with their solution and service delivery. We are delighted with the prospect of expanding our business with WTL. Our business is dependent on providing a high quality network and WTL is able to deliver this. We wish we started this earlier. Not only that, its team are extremely generous with their knowledge, time and expertise, and were able to establish a reliable new node in our network for us within one week."
Admiral A.A. Madueke, Chairman of ICN, said "With WTL's help, ICN is improving our nation's telecoms infrastructure which is, of course, vital to our economic development. We will continue to work with high-quality vendors like WTL so we can continue to provide a fast and reliable service to our customers."
Leigh Smith, MD of WTL, said "Operators across the world are now looking to VoIP as a cost-effective way of increasing voice capacity and improving service reliability."
Recent statistics sourced from the NCC indicate that there are approximately 142 million active telephone subscriptions in Nigeria, while market research agency GFK has predicted that the west African country will be among the top ten smartphone markets globally this year.
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