Telecom Egypt has adopted Nokia's Photonic Service Engine (PSE) technology to double backbone capacity on its Delta Region DWDM backbone network.

According to a statement issued by Nokia, commercial deployment of the new high-speed services started in June and represents the first 200G long distance, single carrier transmission service in Africa.

Both companies acknowledge a growing demand for mobile video and ultra-broadband services, and have collaborated to upgrade the telco's current Nokia 1830 PSS backbone network.

"The network capacity increase brings higher-rate broadband services to fixed customers, as well as higher data rates for LTE mobile subscribers. Upgrading its existing Nokia PSS 1830 switches with Nokia's PSE technology enables Telecom Egypt to double its capacity while reducing operating costs," reads the statement.

Telecom Egypt is upgrading its backbone network using the Nokia 500G DWDM Muxponder, a programmable card that provides wavelength capacities from 50G to 250G per line port.

Based on Nokia's Photonic Service Engine (PSE) coherent digital signal processor, this programmability will allow Telecom Egypt to provision and tune the wavelength capacity per optical route to ensure that its network is operated at peak performance, capacity and lowest cost-per-gigabit.

Ahmed El-Beheiry, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for Telecom Egypt, said: "Doubling capacity on our existing backbone allows us to offer high-speed broadband and LTE services in addition to 100GE services for mobile operators, while reducing costs."

Amr El-Leithy, head of the MEA Market for Nokia, said: "We are proud to be part of this ground-breaking agreement for the continent. We have a longstanding partnership with Telecom Egypt and are pleased to see the growth in demand for both their broadband and LTE services. This is exactly what we had in mind when we designed the 1830 PSS platform. Its flexibility and easy upgradability will allow them to proactively manage the data explosion and develop new revenue streams - all the while improving the experience for their customers."

At AfricaCom 2018 hosted in Cape Town in November, executives from Nokia provided insight into the company's short-to-medium Africa strategy and said it plans to proactively engage the enterprise space, while strengthening its focus on its core business of networking and connectivity.

In its assessment of the broader ICT space in Africa in 2019, Nokia acknowledged the continent's infrastructure challenges, but pointed to opportunities that lie in increased connectivity.