Gateway Communications has further increased its presence in West Africa, having signed two deals in Guinea, expanding its work with Intercel, and agreeing an exciting new contract with ETI SA. Gateway is now working with two major mobile operators and an ISP in Guinea, a country with a mobile penetration of 21.43 percent (ICT Indicators Database 2007) and five mobile phones for every landline.
Guinea’s telecommunications industry is flourishing and this is an exciting time for Gateway to continue to expand its presence in Francophone Africa. Gateway also has established carrier customers in Senegal, as well as Benin, Chad, Niger and Ivory Coast. In 2009, Gateway Communications upgraded its agreement with Intercel Guinea to provide inbound and outbound voice and cellular backhaul services. Intercel is Guinea’s major telecoms provider and Gateway supplies all of its international connectivity and critical backhaul services. Throughout this six year partnership with Intercel Guinea, Gateway has built a national backbone of cellular links, connecting five major cities via cellular backhaul including Kankan, Labé, Mamou and Nzékoré.
During this period of time, Gateway also partnered with ETI SA for use of their Earth station equipment and providing satellite capacity. ETI SA, Guinea’s leading Internet Service Provider (using WiMAX and ADSL) operates out of Conakry and currently focuses on business customers with a view to moving into the consumer market in the future. Gateway provides internet capacity from Conakry to Europe and delivered and implemented its pure SCPC connection via satellite in less than ten days. Gateway continues to do business throughout West Africa, helping customers achieve their commercial goals. In Senegal, Gateway is working with Sonatel to provide international voice services for its ever-growing subscriber base. As part of the France Telecom group, Sonatel holds about a two thirds market share. Senegal is seeing a rapid increase in voice traffic with mobile penetration rates now at 51.63 percent. Gateway has played an essential role in creating an enabling environment for voice traffic growth by working closely with customers in Africa and Europe to maintain high quality routes for Sonatel and its roaming customer base.
