By  Emeka Aginam & Sophia Esumike

Ghana’s wireless broadband and related services provider, Surfline at the weekend received fresh boost from the Chinese telecoms firm, Huawei Technologies for the roll-out the second phase of long term evolution (LTE)/4G in the country.

The announcement follows Surfline’s successful launch last August, which enabled it to raise the bar on both new and existing operators through their ommitment to bring international standards to Ghana.

The partnership agreement was sealed at the just concluded Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain between the representatives of the two companies at a world press conference that attracted international technology journalists.

According to Surfline, this partnership will see the deployment of LTE throughout the country.

The expansion, according to the partnership agreement is planned to cover major cities including Takoradi, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Tamale, Ho, among others. It also included all key municipalities within the country.

Accordingly, the expansion, Furfline said is expected to to reach a targeted subscriber base of 500,000 by the end of 2016.

Once completed Surfline is expected to boost 700 cell sites, making it one of the world’s largest independent LTE networks.

Speaking during the signing ceremony at the Huawei stand, Surfline Executive Chairman, John Taylor said that, “We see Huawei as a true partner in our deployment to the rest of the country.”, he said.

According to Taylor, the partnership with Huawei will ensure that the company goes further in its plans to deploy the 4G network for the rest of the country.

Also speaking, the Managing Director of Huawei, West African region, Peng Song said with optimism that, “As a strong LTE player in Africa – Surfline has already made big progress in a very short time by attracting a lot of subscribers. “Today we are happy to have been chosen as your partner to work together with Surfline in your phase two. We are confident that we can work ogether with Surfline.”

He assured that Huawei will continue to change the lives of Africans with innovative technology in the digital economy.

“Africa is an important market for Huawei. We will continue to deploy our state of the art technologies to the African IT companies. We have recorded success stories in Africa and the rest of the work”he said.It would be recalled that Huawei had outlined its vision for 5G at 2015 MWC held in arcelona, Spain.