Togo Cellulaire is expanding its 2G, 3G and backhaul capacity with base station, microwave and router equipment from Alcatel-Lucent. The vendor is also supplying its 100Gbit/s optical gear to a consortium of Angolan network operators that is building a long-distance data transport link to the West African Cable System (WACS).

Somaliland service provider Somcable is to provide high-speed broadband access services to customers in The Horn of Africa region using Bluwan's Fibre Through The Air (FTTA) system in a deal valued by the vendor at more than US$3 million. The Bluwan gear will be deployed by systems integration partner Globecomm Systems Inc. The deployment is part of a network revamp by Somcable, which has also deployed Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) routers and replaced legacy Alcatel-Lucent transport equipment with packet-optical gear from Optelian . (See Globecomm, Bluwan Team for Wireless Broadband.)

Mozambique Cellular (mcel) is expanding its backhaul network with microwave equipment from Ceragon in a deal valued at $6.5 million.

Alvarion has unveiled a new wireless access product, the BreezeCOMPACT High Power unit, designed to provide mobile data coverage inside buildings. The product supports Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) as well as mobile WiMax (802.16e). Alvarion also announced it has been chosen by BusyInternet, an ISP in Ghana, to supply its 4Motion mobile WiMax radio access equipment for a network rollout in Accra. In addition, Zimbabwean operator uMAX has completed the rollout of a mobile WiMax network in Harare using the vendor's base station gear.

Mobile small-cells specialist PureWave Networks Inc. has won a contract to provide mobile WiMax base stations to Unique Solutions in Gambia.

Guineanet, an ISP in Equatorial Guinea, has expanded its mobile data network using dual-mode base station technology (supporting WiMax and LTE) from Airspan Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: AIRN).

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading