By Ralph Sesay
Sierra Leone leading GSM Company has disclosed in a release that they have invested a total of $114.4 million dollars (One hundred and fourteen Million four hundred thousand dollars in excess in the modernization of their passive infrastructure, generators, DC power systems and RAN Equipment in 2019.
The release continued that since 2016 their focus has been to be in touch and to connect what is essential to the lives of Sierra Leoneans.
The overall vision they noted is to deliver an unmatched service in the country telecoms sector.
The Modernization and expansion drive the company recounted has been able to primarily expand rural connectivity with the building of forty five (45) new sites in 2017; forty two (42) in 2018 and 29 in 2019.
This expansion culminated into the connection of 1,170 new locations across the country with both voice, data/internet and Orange Money financial services in remote communities.
This has correspondingly improved small scale businesses and inter-community and border trade.
Such expansion according to Orange Sierra Leone was fraught with challenges such as Site accessibility; heavy rains; core node migration impact on voice and data services; localized service availability during equipment replacement; shipment delays amongst others.
Despite the challenges the company has been able to pursue a very strong industrial project that has the overall vision to cover the length and breadth of Sierra Leone.
It is no doubt that the company is now the proud owner of 351 sites across the country with the widest network coverage of around 74%.
These activities are in tandem with the continuous commitment of the management of Orange Sierra Leone to work towards improving the country Internet penetration rate which stands at 20%.
Despite these developments Orange Sierra Leone has also continuously partnered with a number of financial players which are no doubt leveraging on the huge customer base of the Orange Money platform to provide increased financial services to their customers.
This is against the backdrop that the creation and operation of banks in traditional communities is quite pretty expensive.
It is also in line with the clarion call of the Central Bank and the government of Sierra Leone to integrate financial services and improve rural connectivity for many Sierra Leoneans.
2019 saw Orange Sierra Leone creating very strong partnership with Zenith and UBA Banks, the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority and the Guma Valley Water Company.
Over Network Expansion and Modernization… Orange Sierra Leone Invests $114.4M
