Cegetel chooses Nokia to expand its SFR mobile Network in France

Nokia and Cegetel have signed a contract worth more than EUR 300 million over 2000 and 2001 for a major expansion and optimisation of the SFR dual band GSM network.

Nokia will provide its advanced GSM equipment to enhance the quality and capacity in the SFR network throughout France, particularly in its three most dense areas; Paris, Lyons and the French Riviera. Furthermore, this equipment will allow Cegetel to evolve smoothly towards new technologies to be introduced within the network in future such as GPRS and UMTS.

Under the agreement, Nokia will supply Cegetel with GSM 900 and GSM 1800 base stations, including Nokia MetroSite and Nokia InSite and the unique triple-mode Nokia UltraSite base stations. High capacity base station controllers will be provided for the expansion, as well as advanced quality and capacity features and the associated services covering project management, engineering, implementation, technical support and maintenance. Cegetel will also benefit from Nokia's Network Management System, NMS 5000, a centralised platform to monitor a multi-vendor network, covering all the GSM network elements.

This agreement is setting a new step in the partnership established between Nokia and Cegetel since the beginning of SFR cellular operations in 1987.

"Cegetel is in a leading position in providing cutting-edge services to our customers. By using Nokia's unique solutions we can support GSM and next generation technologies in various combinations, giving us complete flexibility to configure our network to meet the changing demands of the market," says Pierre Bardon, Managing Director, SFR.

"This agreement further underlines Nokia's position as a leading GSM supplier," said, Paul-Henri Ferrand, Area General Manager, France & North West Africa, Nokia Networks. "Nokia's infrastructure will allow Cegetel to offer its customers the best level of service and the capability to support innovative features and will lay the foundations for the next generation of multimedia rich services in the years to come."

With a turnover of EUR 4.078 billion in 1999 and 8000 employees in the whole of France, Cegetel is the second largest telecommunications operator in France and the first challenger operator. This position is a result of a global operator strategy covering all telecom activities. In mobile telephony, SFR has more than eight million subscribers and in fixed, their "7" service has 1.9 million subscriber lines registered. In the corporate telecommunications market, Cegetel offers its fixed telephony, mobility, Internet and data services to 25,000 corporate customers.

Nokia is paving the way to the Mobile Information Society with its innovative products and solutions. The company is the leading mobile phone supplier and a leading supplier of mobile, broadband and IP networks, related services as well as multimedia terminals. In 1999, Nokia's net sales totaled EUR 19.8 billion (USD 19.9 billion). Headquartered in Finland, Nokia is listed on the New York (NOK), Helsinki, Stockholm, London, Frankfurt and Paris stock exchanges and employs more than 56 000 people.

Further information:

Nokia Networks
Communications Department
Tel. (Int.) + 358 9 5113 8193
Fax (Int.) + 358 9 5113 8199
nokia.networks@nokia.com
www.nokia.com

Cegetel
Fax (Int.) +33 1 71 07 65 21