By Prince Osuagwu
Frontline wireless backhaul providers, Ceragon Networks has described the Nigerian ICT market as prime to its global operations, promising to be a major contributor to the achievement of Nigeria’s vision 202020.

To show its seriousness, the company opened an office in Lagos Nigeria, saying the office would be a servicing hub for its West African operations. The launch of the new office which drew the visit of the company’s President and CEO, Mr. Ira Palti, also attracted important stakeholeders in the Nigerian ICT sector, including the executive commissioner of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) Dr Bashir Gwandu. The new office also comprises of a testing facility.

The multi million dollar office complements the office which the company had before, where it nursed the staff strenght from a paltry three to over 40 within a few months.

Expressing the optimism of investing in the Nigerian market, Palti said that Ceragon Networks has great value for the Nigerian market promising that that the company lead innovations that would advance the country’s already exciting technological developments in Africa .

He also said that the objective of Ceragon was to ensure that operators in the ICT sector have the ability to provide services that would grow information technology market and encourage growth, in addition to giving the end-users desired reliable services.

Commissioning the new Office,  Gwandu, assured the company of his commission’s support in providing enabling environment even as he hinted that already the NCC was working with the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, to fast-track the deployment of spectrum on 700 MHz to allow more services.

Corroborating his CEO, president of Africa Region at Ceragon, Mr. John Earley, said “we recognize that providing creative, innovative and energy efficient solutions which can be quickly and easily implemented is key for operators as they work to maximize their capacity in the minimal possible time. These are the few things we would be happy to see in Nigeria because it is a prime market for us”

In his own remarks, the company’s country manager Mr. Bekele Tadesse said that the visit of the global president of Ceragon to Nigeria to commission the office was an indication that the company truly commits to the Nigerian market. He added that the company has grown the employee base so shrewdly even as about 99 per cent of them are Nigerians.

According to him, Ceragon is involving local dealers of its projects by training on how the products work and how to support such services to. Tadesse cited on the company’s Long Haul, otherwise known as Evolution Series Internet Protocol (IP) which is a versatile and cost-effective microwave radio solution for long distance, high capacity telecommunications networks.

He further explained that the evolution series allows carriers to smoothly migrate from legacy Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to all-IP, satisfying the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, while keeping revenue generating on second generation (2G) or third generation (3G) services intact.