(Business in Cameroon) - Viettel Cameroun, subsidiary of the Vietnamese group, recently awarded the third mobile license in the country will use IBM Smarter Computing. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), according to verified sources of Journal du Cameroun, reported that Viettel Cameroun had retained its IBM Smarter Computing solution for deploying 3G infrastructure in Cameroon.

Under this agreement, Viettel Cameroun will provide the technological infrastructure based on IBM System x 3850 and 3650 servers, Blade Center HS23 servers, IBM Storwize V7000 Storage Systems, a Linux operating system and IBM DB2 PureScale 10 software, which will allow access to next-generation integrated mobile services, for millions of new subscribers in the country at a reduced price.

“This agreement demonstrates our continued commitment in Cameroon, the second market where we have invested in Africa. The complete portfolio of IBM solutions for smarter computing (Smarter Computing) allows us to provide next generation mobile services at optimized costs,” explained Phung Van Cuong, Director of Information Systems at Viettel Group.

According to him, these services allow for example to make a video call while browsing the Internet, playing with friends wherever they are, chat online, connect to multimedia applications on tablet or pay current spending such as a simple parking ticket, said Van Cuong.

According to a study by Pyramid Research, mobile phones in Cameroon are mostly used for voice calls due to limitations of the infrastructure.

In a statement on the agreement with Viettel, IBM reported that the introduction of integrated 3G data services has the potential to attract more than six million new subscribers by 2017. In addition, these servers can handle up to ten terabytes of data. And, Viettel will also simultaneously manage billing systems and customer relationship management (CRM). Viettel Cameroun is working with its partner SVTech to install the solution.

South Africa’s MTN and French Orange dominate the Cameroonian market, and the national operator CAMTEL is lagging behind with its mobile service, City Phone. Eto'o Telecom that focused on low prices seems to drift today.

If the technology of data processing is known, it remains unclear how the company plans to meet the challenge of the national network coverage as described in the business plan. The award of the license to the subsidiary of a leading Vietnamese mobile had been the subject of much criticism in the local press. But the group had indicated they planned to invest CFAF 200 billion to ensure network coverage across the country. A bet that some experts consider simply difficult to hold.