And so the battle continues.

The ongoing battle between Cable & Wireless Seychelles (C&W) and Telecom Seychelles Ltd (Airtel) to reign supreme as the islands’ leading mobile operator is strengthening despite “a challenging economic environment,” that’s forcing them both to dig deep to re-invest.

Just two weeks after Cable & Wireless Seychelles announced plans to invest in equipment and services with the aim of enhancing its all round mobile offering, its competitor Airtel is jumping on the band wagon also.

Both telecoms say their new investments will “bring telecommunications infrastructure in Seychelles to new heights, at par with the most advanced countries in the world.”

C&W is investing SR35m whilst Airtel is spending SR9m more in its advanced network.

Both companies are enhancing their Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication networks and prepaid services with a brand new GSM/General Packets Radio System (GPRS – 2.5G) mobile network, which is also third generation (3G) compatible.

During his recent visit to Seychelles the Chairman of the Bharti Group (Airtel’s parent company) Sunil Bharti Mittal says “the investment will put Seychelles onto wireless broadband highway ahead of most Asian and African countries.”

On his part the C&W’s Chief Executive Usman Saadat describes the positive results their customer will experience as a new era for mobile users in the country.

“The initiative to make mobile communications easier and more advance than ever before is all designed to ensure that telecommunications capabilities in Seychelles are up there with the best in the world,” says Saadat.

The new infrastructure will open a gateway to Multimedia messaging (MMS), WAP (Mobile Internet Browsing) Data Cards, Prepaid Roaming and advanced billing system.

By mid 2006, both Postpaid and Prepaid customers and roamers from all over the world can expect to see more attractive services and enhanced performance from the two companies.

Despite both companies committed approach in introduce advance services in the country, their clients’ greatest expectation is to see this battle resulting in further deduction in telephony costs.