South African mobile operator Vodacom has announced the commercial launch of its LTE services in Durban, while saying that Cape Town is expected to have the offering before year-end.
Last month, the operator beat its rivals to the LTE punch by becoming the first to unveil the services commercially in parts of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The mobile broadband service offers speeds of up to three times faster than 3G.
Vodacom officials say that In under a month the firm has “managed to more than double the number of LTE-enabled base stations on its network.”
It says it has 400 live LTE-enabled base stations and is “ahead of schedule to meet its target of switching on 500 sites by the end of 2012.”
“We have rolled out the technology to a small number of sites - mainly around the Umhlanga area - but we plan to grow this number in the coming months,” said Alberts Breed, Vodacom’s managing executive in the province of Kwazulu Natal, where Durban is situated.
“The plan is to have over 60 sites up and running across KwaZulu-Natal by the end of the first quarter of next year.
“What’s more, we have also recently completed a total upgrade of the existing network in the province,” Breed added.
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