Ericsson has confirmed it is building a new network operations centre in Lagos even as the company is expanding the capabilities of its existing facility in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Fredrik Jejdling, head of Region Sub-Saharan Africa at Ericsson, said the capabilities provided by the centres in Lagos will include engineering, operations and customer experience management.
The facilities in Nigeria and Ivory Coast, he said, will help Ericsson’s customers in Africa make the transition from managing network performance to managing the quality of end-user services such as voice, web browsing and video streaming.
On the choice of Lagos and Abidjan, he said the decision was taken as a result of the availability of talent, infrastructure and connectivity, and also act as hubs used to manage networks across the rest of Africa.
He said “As the country in Africa with both the largest population and the largest economy, Nigeria was the logical choice as the host country for our newest network operations centre. Together with the expanded facility in Ivory Coast, this centre will allow us to continue a proud tradition of more than 100 years working with our customers in Africa.”
The facilities are expected to become operational by Q3 2015 and will help operators keep pace with rapid socio-economic and technological changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that had 635 million subscriptions in 2014 and is expected to have 930 million subscriptions by the end of 2019.
