Ericsson has been awarded three contracts in West Africa by the international operator Investcom LLC, with operations in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Under the agreement Ericsson will supply equipment and telecom services for the expansion and upgrading of Investcom's networks in Ghana and Benin as well as supply the infrastructure and telecom services that will underpin a new network. For this new network, Ericsson will provide a complete turnkey GSM network with a capacity of 300,000 subscribers in the Republic of Guinea. This network will encompass the company's latest technologies in switching, radio, transmission and intelligent networking.

"We explored our options and found Ericsson to offer the highest quality and the most cost effective solution," said Jamal Ramadan, executive director at Investcom. "They understand the operators' needs and are driving technology development in the global mobile telecom industry. West Africa has seen a period of rapid growth for Investcom which gives us the confidence that this will be a highly successful venture."

Elie Bejjani, regional account director at Ericsson, added, "Ericsson holds a unique position in the service layer, which is increasingly important to us as we roll out new mobile services such as WCDMA and other data offerings. We are pleased to expand our relationship with Investcom."