By Foday Moriba Conteh
Barely 5 years ago, Orange (SL) started an ambitious project to transform and modernize its network infrastructure and enhance service delivery to its valued customers. The desire to increase customer satisfaction with the fastest internet speed on the widest coverage was central to this dream.
Today, it is incontrovertible that Orange SL is the leader in terms of network quality for voice, internet speed and coverage. Currently the company has far more sites than any other telecom service provider in the country with more than 445 sites carrying voice and data with the best customer experience nationwide.
Orange is one of the leading telecommunications operators in the world, present in 29 countries with 154,000 employees worldwide. Orange operates in about 20 countries in Africa meaning that one in every 10 people is an Orange customer.
Orange acquired the Airtel operations in Sierra Leone in July 2016 and was recorded as the first company to invest in Sierra Leone immediately following the end of the Ebola epidemic.
Since the inception of Orange operations in Sierra Leone, the company has invested over $112 million dollars in the areas of network modernization and expansion; human resource as well as corporate social responsibility.
The company further invested about $96 million dollars in modernizing and expanding its network infrastructure. This investment resulted in the construction of about 94 new sites mainly in the rural areas, the modernization of the company’s passive infrastructure and active RAN equipment, the replacement of all core equipment, the implementation of a new intelligent network platform for prepaid billing management; the establishment of a new switch to handle voice traffic, a new packet core for the internet traffic and the launch of a new Data Centre.
That exceptional and incomparable work done so far resulted to the connection of about 925 new localities with thousands of Sierra Leoneans now accessing data, voice and financial services for the first time.
In respect of human resource, Orange invested about $16 million dollars in the last two years. The company prides itself in capacity building by ensuring that its employees benefit from soft skills, technical and leadership trainings. The company nurtures talent from on-boarding; ensures retention and provides exposure opportunities to other Orange affiliates.
Orange being a multi-service provider and a responsible corporate citizen places emphasis on corporate social investment. In just two years, the company invested about $ 400,000 dollars mainly in the areas of women empowerment, health, education and the environment.
Orange remains the first operator in Sierra Leone to have contributed to the Government’s Free Quality Education (FQE) agenda by pledging the sum of $1.5m in material assistance over a period of five years starting from 2019.
Orange launched the first Coding School in Sierra Leone in partnership with the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) with an estimated cost of about Le2.75 billion ($308,000).
As part of the company’s strategic ambition for Sierra Leone, Orange is present in the country with a strong industrial project that will lead to invest significantly to cover most of the population in the country with telecoms and mobile financial services. This is why orange is committed to invest additionally in order to build new sites, and to extend its 4G Services to the rest of the country.
Orange remains committed to providing the best telecom services in Sierra Leone ensuring its customers get an “unmatched” experience.
