Nokia and Orange Middle East & Africa (MEA) plan to roll out a Nokia single radio access network and network management technology across seven African countries in a three-year modernisation project to prepare for the launch of 4G services.

To facilitate the deployment Nokia has set up a dedicated West and Central Africa Support Centre for Orange.

"In one of the largest LTE rollouts in Africa, Nokia will modernise around 11,000 radio sites in Egypt, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Niger. Leveraging Nokia's Single RAN technology and modernisation services, Orange will be able to support existing 2G and 3G subscribers while enhancing speeds and coverage as it launches 4G services," reads a statement issued by the companies.

With deployment underway, Orange claims to have already lowered operational costs and launched new 4G services in Egypt, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.

The company is also enhancing 3G service with an average 85% increase in throughput, and is experiencing a 90% increase in traffic across the seven countries, according to the statement.

"From the dedicated Orange support centre in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, Nokia is leveraging its expertise to deliver full set of services, including alarm, performance and configuration monitoring, as well as corrective actions on the radio installed base, while speeding implementation and optimising the network to ensure more than 60 million Orange subscribers experience consistent high-quality service," the statement continues.

As part of the deal, Nokia Care Services ensure that service level agreements are met, thus ensuring flawless communications.

The support centre will also serve as a gateway for the future introduction of advanced solutions and technologies serving IOT, smart cities and other use cases in Africa.

In a bid to exert further influence in the region, in early March Stéphane Richard, President and CEO of the Orange group announced the appointment of Alioune Ndiaye, former Director General of the company's subsidiary Sonatel, as the CEO for MEA region.