Chinese telecom equipment major ZTE Corporation is emerging as a strong player in South
Africa.
ZTE has been a significant
contributor to South African telecom sector. ZTE has been involved in key deals
with South Africa.
Recently, ZTE won a contract to build a 1,900 kilometre fibre-optic links
across South Africa as
announced by FibreCo Telecommunications, a joint venture between Cell
C, Convergence Partners and Internet Solutions.
The telecom milestone of
fibre-optic infrastructure in South Africa by ZTE will assist the country to
strengthen the overall development and accelerate participation in the global information
economy.
This deal will be a major
milestone Africa. The deal will take South Africa to the league of other
countries like USA, China or India, where operators are building fibre-optic infrastructure to tap the broadband market.
This landmark investment
will provide affordable, reliable and fast internet access to ordinary South
Africans,” said Andile Ngcaba, chairman of FibreCo.
Last year, Cell C awarded
contract of network supply agreement and a
managed services agreement to ZTE under which ZTE
has to supply equipment and services to Cell C worth $378 million.
Moreover, the Ethiopian
Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) has a history of co-operation with ZTE
that dates back to 2001. In 2008, the companies signed a $120 million agreement
which covers fibre transmission project, expansion of mobile telephone services
for the forthcoming Ethiopian new millennium as well as expansion of wireless
telephone service throughout the country which brought considerable growth in
South African telecom sector.
There are many other key
telecom development roles won by ZTE in South Africa. ZTE is part of an $80
million Kenyan Government ICT spend, supported by the World Bank, installing
fibre-optic cables in western Kenya and the North Rift Fibre Optic project.
The Chinese equipment
vendor ZTE is strengthening presence in other international markets as well.
ZTE announced its selection by South America’s ANTEL in terms to assist
in providing 300,000 subscribers in Uruguay with a Gigabit Passive Optical
Network (GPON).
BSNL also chose ZTE to improve broadband
connectivity in India. ZTE will deploy ultra high-speed ADSL2+ and
next-generation VDSL2+ broadband devices across BSNL’s network in 15 circles.
ZTE’s strong and innovative
export-oriented growth strategies enabled the company to secure 112 FTTx commercial contracts in the first half
of 2011, surpassing the number of the company’s international FTTx contracts in
all of 2010.
ZTE has been preferred for
investments purposes by various countries especially in emerging countries. The Chinese vendor is also willing to bend the
rules to provide more cost-effective solutions for emerging markets.
The involvement of Chinese
majors like ZTE definitely risks European
vendors like Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Network and Alcatel-Lucent business
opportunity in emerging markets like South Africa.
South Africa’s Neotel picked
up Huawei, ZTE’s Chinese competitor, to expand its CDMA network. The contract
involved the provision of a 4G base transceiver station to increase the
coverage and capacity of the network which is the latest technology for telecom
sector to hinge on.
By Rashi Varshney
[email protected]
