GO, has just signed an agreement with global telecom giant, Alcatel-Lucent for the roll out of a Next Generation Mobile Core Network (NGN). Embarking on such an ambitious upgrade of the mobile core will further evolve GO’s infrastructure and put the company in an even stronger position in its ongoing drive to provide a flexible approach for consumers to use new services. This agreement was signed following a recent statement by GO’s Board of Directors which approved the initial investments in NGN, both in the mobile and fixed line businesses.
Alcatel-Lucent will provide GO with an NGN mobile core solution that will result in a complete upgrade of its existing network, and will pave the way to future enhancement and IMS – the multimedia subsystem that enables convergence of data, speech and network technology over an IP-based infrastructure. IMS will further evolve GO’s infrastructure and enable communications in a variety of modes including voice text, pictures and video. Alcatel-Lucent’s ultimate solution, tailor-made for GO will interwork with the existing 2G, 3G and HSDPA technology.
Alcatel-Lucent – formed when Alcatel merged with Lucent Technologies some years back – is a global telecommunications corporation headquartered in Paris. It provides its customers with various telecommunications solutions focussing on fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking hardware, IP technologies, software and services. The company boasts operations in more than 130 countries round the world.
“GO has always been at the forefront of innovation and technology and this project will give even more edge to our infrastructure, thus allowing us to continuously improve our portfolio of voice and data mobile services – in short to create a better end-user experience for our customers,” said GO CEO, David Kay.
“GO and Alcatel-Lucent have been partnering on several projects and we consider Alcatel-Lucent a very established and reliable supplier. I am convinced that this multi-million investment will prove to be an important foundation on which we will build an even brighter future delivering powerful, new services to our customers in a scalable, cost-effective way,” he added.
“This investment programme, as well as other important projects such as fibre-to-the-home deployment, confirm GO’s confidence in strengthening its local operation to the benefit of all its stakeholders and the country’s development,” Mr Kay said.
“The agreement underpins the significant investment made by GO to speed up a wider roll out of Next Generation Network. This year it is expected that GO will achieve an important milestone – that of hitting the 500,000 mark vis-à-vis customer connections throughout the Maltese islands. The investment will therefore help us reach such a milestone and hence an even broader customer base. At the same time it will ensure we continue to retain our customers and keep up high levels of satisfaction and loyalty – also thanks to the attractive, value-for-money bundling of services we provide,” said Joseph Bugeja, GO’s Chief Technology Officer.
Referring to the newly-signed agreement between the two parties, Mario Covini, Country Senior Officer Malta for Alcatel-Lucent said, “We are glad to have this opportunity to collaborate once again with GO on this innovative project that will continue to evolve GO’s mobile network and simultaneously boost the plethora of services it already provides – both in terms of quality and number.”
“GO is a dynamic operator with a reputation of efficiency, reliability and provider of top-notch services in the local market. The project further enhances our long standing relationship with GO and we are confident that our mutual cooperation will continue to flourish on the basis of the agreement.”
At the beginning of 2008, in consortium with Elettra, a Telecom Italia Group company specialising in survey, installation and maintenance of submarine cable networks, Alcatel-Lucent was selected for a turnkey project with GO plc to deploy a new submarine network between Malta and Sicily. GO’s second submarine fibre-optic cable to Sicily, was fully implemented according to plan some months later giving Malta extra capacity and resiliency in terms of data throughput. As a result, GO is the only local telecoms provider that owns and operates two submarine cables to Europe.
From left: GO CEO, David Kay with Mario Covini, Alcatel-Lucent Country Senior Officer Malta after the signing of the agreement between GO and Alcatel-Lucent.