Libyan telecom company signs contracts

Tripoli, Libya - The Libyan General Posts and Telecommunications Company (GPTC) on Thursday signed four contracts in the field of telecommunications, official sources told PANA in Tripoli.

The agreements were signed in Tripoli in the presence of the GPTC Secretary, Dr Mohamed Mouamamr Kadhafi and the Secretary of the Libyan General People's Committee for education and scientific research, Abdelkebir Fakhri.

The first contract signed with Chinese Huawei and ZTE communication is for the execution of a project for the extension of fixed wireless telephony of a capacity of 800,000 lines in Libya.

Using the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which offers multiple access, the wireless telephony project offers telephone calls services (Voice calls), fax, voice messages (VMS), Medium speed Internet of 70 kbps, prepaid services and the automatic prog ramming of subscribers.

The number of fixed telephone lines which was 516,258 in 2001 has leaped to 1.1 million.

The second contract signed between the Libya Telecom and Technology (LTT) and the Libyan General People's committee for education and scientific research is for a project connecting Libyan schools with the Internet for access to data exchange services between sites through the technology of the specific virtual private network (VPN), telephone services through the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) as well as the Internet Content Filter.

The duration of the execution of this project, which costs 82 million Libyan dinars (1.250 Libyan dinars = 1 US dollar), is 22 months.

The project, which targets during its first stage 1,175 sites of the education sector, is aimed, among other things, to computerise the Internet, educational institutions and the guar antee of easy and quick access to data.

It is also for the organisation of video-conferencing meetings, generalization of the electronic school manual, promotion of educational television channel programmes, training of pupils and teachers on modern instruments and strengthening of their capacities.

The third contract, which has to do with the project for the creation of a new mobile telephony network of a capacity of 100,000 subscribers, was signed between the Libya Telecom and Technology (LTT) and Huawei Technology.

Offering solutions and services in communication ranging from telephone communications through picture images and other multiple communication aids, this new network of mobile telephony will be commercialised during the first quarter of next year.

The fourth project has to do with the improvement of the first Libyan mobile telephony operator, Al-Madar Al-Jedid.