Kamar Abbas: Ntel CEO

The Chief Executive Officer of ntel, Mr Kamar Abass, on Thursday said that the telecoms company had made its first Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) call in Lagos.

Abass made this known in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

NAN reports that NatCom Development and Investment Limited, trading as ‘ntel’, is the company that acquired the core assets of NiTel/MTel in liquidation.

It said that the test VoLTE call was made at 3.30pm at ntel’s new Tier III data centre located on Lagos Island.

The statement said that VoLTE calls were enabled over a carrier’s high-speed data network instead of on a voice network.

It said that VoLTE calls also connected faster upon dialling and featured ultra-clear high-definition voice quality.

According to the statement, the VoLTE call is completed in partnership with equipment manufacturers, LM Ericsson of Sweden and Sony Electronics of Japan.

”This crystal-clear, high-definition VoLTE call was made via an ntel SIM card and is set to be a significant differentiating factor for ntel, as it progresses with the roll-out of Nigeria’s largest Advanced 4G/LTE network due to be launched shortly.

”The successful test call is a confirmation that the key network elements are now in place to support the full commercial launch of premium integrated voice, video and data services over 4G/LTE.

”ntel network is built on the 900/1800 Mhz which are the most efficient propagation frequencies for the deployment of 4G/LTE technology,” the statement quoted Abass as saying.

The statement said that the VoLTE call followed ntel’s first data call on Jan. 18, and its first SIP voice call on Feb. 18.

It said that ntel would now progress work with Nigeria’s other mobile operators and international partners to perform cross-network VoLTE calls.

The statement said that the company would ensure that ntel’s customers connected with each other as easily as they could to both customers in Nigeria and to those elsewhere in the world, a network now comprising more than seven billion telephones globally.

It said that the test call was a further demonstration that ntel was fully committed to building on the acquired assets of NiTel/MTel to provide world class super-fast broadband services to support the Federal Government’s 2013 National Broadband plan.

The statement said that ntel would commence full commercial operations in its key launch states of Lagos, Abuja and Port-harcourt shortly.