ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: Ufone, one of the leading telecom operators in the country, on Tuesday announced $550 million largest-ever expansion of its network. The plan envisages network growth in terms of existing capacity, coverage and cities, besides providing high-speed wireless data services based on a new technology called EDGE, president Ufone Babar Khan told reporters here.With the expansion, he said, it is estimated that by the end of June 2007, Ufone will be covering more than 1,500 cities out of the existing 7,500 cities, towns, villages and all major highways in the country. The new investments in network expansion will double the existing operational capacity.

Approved by the Ufone board, the project reflects commitment of the shareholders to invest in infrastructure and to provide best quality network and facilities to its customers, he observed.

The contract has been awarded to M/S Huawei, a Chinese company, which is one of the most rapidly growing telecom vendors globally. However, the present infrastructure from M/S Nortel and Siemens will continue to be operational, he explained.

Unfolding details of the network expansion Mr Babar said Ufone would be acquiring state-of-the-art network infrastructure based on Release-4 standard for future mobile communications, highly compatible for smooth and seamless migration to the third generation UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System).

Over the last two years, Ufone subscribers-base had grown from 650,000 to over 8.5 million nationwide, he said.