MENLO PARK, California, United States—interWAVE Communications signed a distribution agreement with Global Telephone & Telecommunications, a Belgium satellite and last-mile integrator, to deploy GSM cellular networks with satellite backhaul throughout Africa.
“Working together, we will be able to provide mobile communications capabilities to many areas of Africa where wireline telephony services aren’t available or don’t exist,” said Martin de la Serna, interWAVE’s regional managing director.
InterWAVE’s technology allows a mobile switching center to be located at the edge of a network. When a subscriber places a local call, the call is switched locally, reducing backhaul requirements by 50 percent to 75 percent and reducing mobile services costs, interWAVE said.
