Group Capital Projects Manager
IHS Towers
Total years of experience :18 years, 4 Months
Leading and overseeing the Group's Capex/Opex function, managing in-country Technical teams in Nigeria, Cameroun, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Rwanda, Lebanon. Defining the Group's Technical strategies and overseeing deliveries and KPIs of projects and operations.
The role included proposing plans of all capital expenditures in the subsidiaries to Group CTO;
• Follow up Build-to-Suit (BTS) and Buy and Lease Back (BLB) programs (building new
sites and acquisition of existing sites);
• Liaise with procurement for vendor selection and commercial terms;
• Work on optimizing cost, setting specifications for various site equipment (towers, alarm
systems, DC and AC power systems, solar and wind systems, civil works, etc.);
• Study, analyze, and propose capital allocation among subsidiaries;
• Follow up on technical activities with various subsidiaries
This role included planning and managing the design and rollout of all networks to achieve business goals and corporate strategy. This include Radio, Access and Transmission networks designs, rollout, optimization and maintenance of access networks. This role also coordinates all network rollout projects across radio, access and transport networks to ensure effective end-to-end integration and handover across all interfaces during the project.
- Generated reports for project startup that included: Radio and Microwave BOQs, new site cost, salary scales, acquisition process and cost, co-location cost, office rental cost .
- Completed Radio and Transmission designs for the following operations: Burundi; Tanzania, Congo, Uganda, DRC (Total of 900 sites, G9 / D18 and 3G bands). Tools used: Pathloss and Asset.
- Completed radio and transmission survey for all the above.
- Part of the technical team who was in charge of discussing, reviewing, negotiating, approving and
finalizing engineering designs and technical details proposed by ZTE for all radio side equipments.
- Review of the price and contents of the hardware and software list proposed by ZTE to be delivered to BOL. Proposal of optional features to be bought by BOL Tanzania.
- Finalized contracts and deals with subcontractors related to operation startup: civil works, MSC room preparation, site acquisition, operation and maintenance, site co-location, shipping and custom clearance.
- Finalized all needed licenses with Telecommunication Regulator for network startup
- Finalized interconnection agreements with different operators
- Reviewed and approved scope of work with different contractors
- Prepared project plan for GSM operation ( expected to be live end of this year)
- Organized and recruited personnel for BSS department: radio / transmission planning, Operation and Maintenance, Microwave, Power.
- Coordination of acceptance preparation for the different BSS systems. Discussing, reviewing, negotiating, and proposing structure and contents of different acceptance standard test plans written by ZTE.
- Generated reports and recommendation regarding existing CDMA network.
- Was in charge of site operation and maintenance of CDMA network; which included: BTS, Microwave
and Power.
Managed Radio/Transmission planning, Operation/Maintenance and Rollout departments.
- Managed Radio/Transmission planning and Operation/Maintenance departments.
- Provide technical and strategic leadership and direction for the BSS section of the network
- Prepared a detailed plan to expand network from 450 to 700K. Plan included radio / transmission and
traffic planning, site survey, detailed hardware BOQs, Tower and civil work preparation.
- Finalize deals with suppliers. Review of the price and contents of BOQs to be delivered to Africell.
- Managed rollout plan of 50 sites that included civil work; tower erection; radio, microwave and BTS
installation in four month.
- Responsible for inter coordination between different departments and subcontractors to meet project
deadlines and KPIs.
- Prepared procedures for site acceptance. This included civil work, tower erection, BTS installation and
Drive tests.
- Generated weekly and monthly reports reflecting ongoing work, operation cost and network
performance
- Restructured BSS department.
- Definition and preparation of routine maintenance procedures.
- Responsible for implementing work flow procedures to maintain a proper network performance and
meet KPIs between different departments (Optimization, BTS, Power, Transmission, BSC) for 99 dual
band sites.
- Coordinated Siemens third BSC integration and network software upgrade from BR.7 to BR.9.
- Onsite maintenance for BSC, BTS, Microwave and Power failures
- On call engineer 24/7
- Performed new sites installation ( BTS, Microwave, Antennas, Power) and commissioning ( BTS /
Transmission)
- Performed BTS swap, re-configuration and sites upgrades.
- Issue and follow up of tickets with vendor
- Transcoder ( TRAU) installation and commissioning
- Preparation of scripts for BSC database modifications that include addition of new sites; sites
upgrades, site re-homing .
- Site planning (radio / transmission) and survey.
- Performed network optimization (physical and parameters), drive tests using Asset and TEMS.
- Performed optimization for Sierra Leon project as member of radio team.
- Prepared frequency, neighboring and traffic plans
- Maintained network KPIs by monitoring network stats, performing optimization, drive test, traffic
planning hardware maintenance, site upgrades and adding new sites.
- Drive tests for identifying Coverage holes, capacity requirements and new coverage requirements,
Site Auditing, which includes antenna bearing measurement and rectification & giving mechanical tilts
to the antennas.
- Analysis the Network performance Statistics (KPI) e.g. Handover statistics, Drop Statistics, their
reasons and take necessary action.
- Analysis of drive test files, to determine the External and Internal interference in the Network, Which
involves analysis of BER, Rx Level, SQI, RxQual, FER
- Power Budget Calculation, Coverage Simulation, Network Capacity calculation, preparing Frequency
Plan, Interference Simulation and BOQ.
- Performed installation and integration of one BSC.
- Prepared plans and scripts for site re-homing between different BSCs
- Was involved in MSC power dimensioning and integration of new rectifier system