Hotspot Partners with Parallel Wireless to Deliver on Nigeria’s Connectivity Vision

Hana Gazoli   December 16, 2020

The Open RAN Solution and NaaS Model to Deliver Broadband Services Across 2,000 locations in Nigeria

GSMA states that in Sub-Saharan Africa, a quarter of the population still lives outside of mobile broadband coverage, compared to 7%  globally. Mobile internet is the sole method of digital access for many individuals and businesses in Nigeria. The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the importance of the mobile internet to support access to education, work, healthcare, services and social networks.

In this video, Zahid Ghadialy, Sr. Director at Parallel Wireless, looks in detail at mobile trends in Africa.

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The federal government of Nigeria is committed to facilitating the achievement of its national policy goals for Universal Service and Access to information and communication technologies in Nigeria. This deployment is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals SDG Goals 1, 2, 6, 7 and 13. It also aligns with African Development Banks High 5’s – Light up & Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa and improve the quality of life for people of Africa. The strategic goal of Parallel Wireless and Hotspot’s partnership is to help regional mobile operators build and expand wireless networks across Nigeria, providing next-generation digital services to local communities. This will meet Digital Farmers Club’s (DFC), Universal Service Provision Fund’s (USPF) and NITDA Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture’s (NAVSA)

objective to provide voice and data services to 2,000 locations in Nigeria to enable eHealth, eHospitality, eEducation, eBanking, eAgriculture and, as a result, improve the citizens’ standard of living and bring them into the digital economy. This will help DFC to create over 100,000 direct jobs and 1,500,000 indirect jobs across Nigeria.

In this deployment, the partnership will enable the following capabilities:

BUSINESS MODEL: Hotspot is to develop (investing CAPEX), operate and maintain (responsible for OPEX) telecoms assets with the aim to increase access to affordable coverage.

New agricultural services enablement and financial inclusion for farmers:

• DFC Infrastructure components and help to finance mobile devices for farmers brings rural dwellers into the digital economy as they begin to use various services available on mobile networks like online commodity markets and farmer social networks that encourage knowledge and information sharing.
• Rural farmers will be able to increase the shelf life of their products due to advanced agricultural practices gleaned from social networks and extension services information delivered to their phones.
• The Hotspot Rural Hub (Retrofitted Shipping Containers, furnished with basic furniture, power and Wi-Fi) will host farmers and agent bankers to help increase financial inclusion to help them open and run bank accounts.

Educational empowerment

• Provide internet access to schools for online educational content.
• Enable STEM programs to give better opportunities to rural children to get into colleges.

Female digital and economical inclusion

• DFC provides a platform for empowering women who run agro businesses with knowledge and skills in contemporary agricultural techniques and running a micro/small business.
• In addition, DFC and partnering banks will help to finance their devices.

In this video, Christoph Fitih, Director of Sales for Parallel Wireless, describes how Open RAN technology can help improve people’s lives across Africa through easy to deploy and cost-effective wireless coverage.

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The Parallel Wireless 2G 3G 4G Cloud-native Open RAN has shown a very strong performance, quality of service and cost benefits on six continents with:

• The most mature OpenRAN RRUs from 2×2, 4×4, 8×8 and Massive MIMO hardware that is software upgradable to any G and can support any 3GPP compliant RAN splits. The 2G 3G 4G software enables Open RAN DU/CU split by using standards-based and open interfaces between network components running on COTS-based vBBU to deliver scalable capacity. Learn more about our cloud-native 2G 3G 4G software in this solution overview: https://www.parallelwireless.com/solution-overviews/2g-solution-overview/
• Open RAN Controller to lower the cost of RAN through simplification, automation via real-time SON, and full virtualization of networks. It also provides seamless mobility, local breakout, and low latency for the best subscriber experience for 2G voice and 4G data.

In this video, Lux Maharaj, Sales Director for Africa, explains how deploying Open RAN across Africa can reduce deployment cost, accelerate roll outs and prepare for any future upgrade through software.

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To learn more about Open RAN, please download this eBook.