NEW YORK (Bloomberg) -- Etisalat plans to spend 1 billion dollars building a network in Nigeria that will enable it to compete with rivals including MTN Group Ltd.

""Nigeria has Africa's largest population, but the penetration rate is less than 20 percent, so there's a lot of potential to expand our network there,'' Etisalat Chairman Mohammad Hassan Omran said in an interview in Dubai.
State-controlled Etisalat plans to start its Nigerian unit in March and will sign contracts with ""one or two'' equipment suppliers by October, Omran said, declining to name them.
The company will spend 1 billion dollars to construct its network through 2010, he added.
Mubadala Development Co., the investment company owned by Abu Dhabi's government, said Etisalat will operate its 15-year renewable Nigerian phone licence. Mubadala in January agreed to pay 400 million dollars for a license to become Nigeria's third fixed-line and fifth mobile-phone operator, according to the West African nation's Communications Commission