Ericsson has unveiled a suite of additions to its Radio System which it says will enable operators across Africa and in other developing markets to improve user experience while helping to bridge the digital divide.

First launched at Mobile World Congress a few months ago, the new set of solutions representing a gradual expansion of 3G networks is now available.

Pieter van der Westhuizen, Vice President and Head of Customer Unit Southern Africa at Ericsson Sub-Saharan Africa, says the growing need for connectivity in low average revenue per user markets inspired the need to make the mobile network business more affordable.

"Today ninety percent of the world is covered by GSM networks and we believe that converting the GSM footprint and reusing the infrastructure built for GSM to 3G and 4G technology is the most cost effective way to provide good quality internet access to the world's population. With these solutions that we launched at Mobile world Congress, together with a set of new tools, we can help operators to target investments where they are needed in order to provide internet access."

Henrik Linnet, head of network product solutions at Ericsson in Sub-Saharan Africa says transforming 2G into 3G or even 4G makes it possible for rural users who want access to financial and other services through their mobile devices to download up to 20 times more data in the same time span.

The upgraded Radio Systems solution includes Psi coverage that lowers energy consumption by up to 40% as well as a radio developed specifically for developing markets providing reduced wind load and 30% less energy consumption.

While redesigned cases and enclosures are among the few products available immediately to the market and already in use in Tanzania, the entire suite of products will be available from Q1 2017.

"The majority of network downtime in Africa is caused by power outages. It is as simple as that even as South Africa has become better in the last two or three years - this is still a problem in many other countries Africa. By lowering the energy consumption of all active components we make it possible to have lower the cost for sustainability reasons and to provide better network performance," said Linnet.

He estimates that the new solutions will result in a reduction of power use of between 400 and 600 watts on a site. "It can even be twice as high or even higher. But if we get to that range then we have been successful. We are working with operators now deploy this to see what we can achieve because it depends on the user patterns and subscribers as well as how much power we need to provide and so on. There is a lot of things but the best things is to try it out."

The new solutions address the significant divide in internet adoption between developed and developing countries according to Ericsson because only four out of ten people in developing countries are connected to the internet, and about 15% of the world's population do not have access to electricity.

The company also pointed out that the solutions are also being rolled out in support of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Connect 2020 target of ensuring that more than 50% of people in the developing world are using the internet by 2020.