Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile service provider, to build a gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) solution to expand Vodacom’s customer base enterprise and residential markets.
The new converged network enables Vodacom to provide customers with ultra-broadband needed to access bandwidth-hungry services and applications such as online gaming and streaming video.
According to Vodacom, it will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s comprehensive end-to-end GPON solution, as well as the Motive customer experience platform to provide high-quality network performance through advanced performance management capabilities across both wireline and wireless.
Andries Delport, Vodacom Group CTO said: “We first began talking with Alcatel-Lucent about expanding Vodacom’s business into the fixed access market five years ago. This was a significant move for us and required a great deal of consideration. Over time, the Alcatel-Lucent team was able to show that it was the right move for us and that their solution was the best for our needs.”
Willem Hendrickx, president of Alcatel-Lucent Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) said: “This effort represents a significant and bold move by Vodacom into the fixed network space and allows them to take advantage of new, revenue-generating business models. We are excited that our technology, expertise and knowledge are helping take Vodacom to the next level of converged communications.”