CAPE TOWN - The US-based wireless technology firm, Parallel Wireless, won a coveted award at Africa-
Com last week in recognition of helping to connect Africa’s unconnected population.
The Nashua headquartered firm became the recipient of the 2017 AfricaCom Most Innovative LTE Service/Application Deployment Award.
The firm, a global leader in the wireless infrastructure market, was recognised for its ability to make LTE deployments as easy and as cost effective as Wi-Fi.
Parallel Wireless solution allows for operators to upgrade from 2G to 3G or 4G, simultaneously on the same technology. And added to this is the ease at which the solution can be installed. Also, the installation doesn't require substantial power or cooling cabinets or servers, making it the most power-efficient solution on the market currently.
The system affords operators the opportunity to roll out cost-effective connectivity to urban and rural communities and can help to connect 4 billion unconnected in the world, especially across Africa.
Yisrael Nov, vice-president of sales at Parallel Wireless, said last week that the firm was honoured to have received the award and looks forward to connecting the African continent and empowering people and businesses.
"First of all, we are proud to receive this award, with member states recognising what we are doing, and showing and understanding how we can be of help in Africa.
We are changing the concept of cellular to allow a big reduction in the cost of building the cellular network by the way we are moving our technology from a parting system to an open system, where you can buy from the market whatever you want and you can be very competitive.
Reducing costs
“We are also minimising the equipment required The footprint from the sites is small and the power consumption is low. The cost of operation per site and building a site are also becoming much more affordable. And you can now go to rural places and deploy new sites and new coverage,” he pointed out.
Nov added that one of the main challenges of operating in remote and rural locations was the lack of power, but the firm had overcome this by developing solar-generated systems, which are more cost effective to operate at sites than those requiring diesel-generated power.
The firm was making it possible for customers to choose the technology they preferred to use at no extra cost.
Nov said the Parallel Wireless solution basically allows everything to be done at low cost and allows everyone to be connected in an affordable way, with easy deployment to get connected to data or voice technology.
“We are doing deployment now all over the world and also in rural places. People really like our solutions, because it saves them operational costs and huge amounts of money.”
Nov said the company was relatively young, having been in operation for under five years, mainly developing their technology, which they had started marketing only in the past six months.
The company has since won numerous awards globally, including last week’s award at AfricaCom, which brought the total number to 34.
He said the companies the firm had competed against were large and well established.
“Compared to us they are huge companies. Yes, it is challenging to get into the market, but many operators are opening their doors to us because they recognise what we are doing Especially in Africa I can see a lot of interest.