MTN Cote d’Ivoire has signed a USD75 million renewable five-year contract with Canadian infrastructure supplier NuRAN Wireless to expand its network coverage in rural areas. The deal will see up to 1,000 sites deployed under a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) model. The project is expected to support 2G and 3G services, with a variety of site categories to cover different population densities and coverage areas. Fees for the NaaS services provided by NuRAN are paid on a revenue sharing basis, and the vendor expects to retain ownership of the infrastructure after the completion of the contract.
Francis Letourneau, CEO of NuRAN, said: ‘We are extremely pleased to add Ivory Coast to our growing portfolio of African countries and to bring essential mobile connectivity to potentially over three million people.’