Belize Telemedia Bridges Communications Gap in Rural Communities

The Nortel wireless technology will completely replace Belize Telemedia's current GSM infrastructure provided by a Nortel competitor, as well as deploy a new CDMA 450 MHz network, to support Telemedia's growing subscriber demand in Belize, and the demand for more advanced products and services across the entire country.

Telemedia's current wireless infrastructure will be upgraded to a Nortel GSM GPRS/EDGE 850/1900 MHz wireless network, which provides improved network coverage and connectivity for customers. Additionally, the operator will launch a completely new network based on Nortel CDMA 1xRTT and 1xEV-DO technologies in the 450 MHz spectrum, to extend services and help close the communications gap in rural communities.

"With these new Nortel technologies, Belize Telemedia will further enhance its reputation for quality, and support a more advanced and comprehensive range of services," said Dean Boyce, chairman of the executive committee at Belize Telemedia. "We are substantially bolstering our network and market leadership by improving the coverage, reliability, performance and capabilities of our wireless infrastructure. Also, with the implementation of the CDMA/EVDO platform, utilizing the 450 MHz frequency, we are providing voice and high-speed internet service for the more rural and remote locations in Belize, which in turn will act as a primary generator of growth for those local economies."

"Our promise to customers is to help make the complex, simple, by helping them harness the opportunities posed by Hyperconnectivity, a trend which encompasses person-to-person communication, person-to-machine and machine-to-machine, in their business environments," said Ray Bulengo, vice president, Carrier Sales, Caribbean and Bermuda, Nortel. "With this wireless infrastructure in place, Belize Telemedia can now take the lead in bridging the digital divide through offering affordable broadband wireless Internet services to users located in rural areas of Belize. We are pleased to continue a relationship spanning more than twenty years supplying a wide breadth of telecommunications solutions to Belize Telemedia."

Belize Telemedia's network replacement and upgrade also features Nortel's all-IP product line which includes a new Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture, Mobile Switching Center (MSC) Server and Home Location Register (HLR ), enabling operators to support multiple services and applications on the same platform type. The new product line also includes high-density VoIP Media Gateways capable of supporting more subscribers with less equipment than traditional platforms at a significantly lower cost.-Nortel