MTN South Africa and Huawei have launched South Africa’s first LampSite indoor coverage Solution at a mall in Johannesburg.

The two companies say the Commercial LampSite Network will significantly enhance Lakeside Mall's indoor network coverage, network capacity and result in an improved customer experience.

Krishna Chetty, general manager for radio planning and optimisation at MTN told those attending the launch that deployment of the LampSite Solution is in anticipation of a future where mobile connectivity will be the most preferred way of connecting.

“The LampSite development helps us create this future in a less obtrusive way with a faster time to market - that pretty much is what a Lampsite does. It creates the ability to connect to the internet at really high speeds. It is a very localised solution with low (carbon) emissions.”

Chetty added that while the LampSite indoor coverage solution was erected in a commercial space for the launch it could help improve communication in other environments including stadiums, hospitals, office parks, and airports.

MTN put up 64 Huawei LampSite small cell base stations throughout the Mall and peak download speeds within the shopping centre reached highs of up to 72 Mbps during a live network test at the launch. Huawei also used 6 mobile phones to simultaneously display live streaming of 4k high-resolution videos on a monitor with all six devices streaming.

Edric Chu, director of Huawei MTN Key Account told those attending the launch that the project was a significant milestone for the ten year relationship between MTN South Africa and Huawei.

“In the future as a reliable partner to MTN South Africa, Huawei will continue to make the effort to make South Africa better connected.”

Chu also pointed out that the Huawei LampSite Solution won the "Best Mobile Infrastructure Award" at the Mobile World Congress 2015 and has been rolled out in more than one hundred countries worldwide.

Wider deployment on the cards

Krishna told ITWeb Africa that 10% of MTN’s 12 billion rand investment for 2015 in South Africa is dedicated to small cell solutions such as the Commercial LampSite Network.

“Going forward to 2020 that amount will increase because an individual will need to be no further than fifty to seventy five metres from an antenna. There will be a lot more of these localised solutions closer to the customer in order to ensure that they can watch 4k videos etc cetera. If you look at some of the things we’ve done, like the micro cells we’ve built with City Power...we cannot have a proliferation of major towers - it creates an eyesore. These solutions help us with a quality experience and with protecting the aesthetics of the environment.”said Krishna

Krishna indicated that the Commercial LampSite Network Would soon be rolled out on other parts of the continent.

“If I look at maturity, Nigeria and Iran make up more subscribers than South Africa but perhaps that is a function of the population in those countries. If you look at the percentage of the  population as a function of the subscriber base, you have a higher percentage of the population as a function of the subscriber base in South Africa. We are also a more mature operator in terms of the technology that we use. We are the blueprint for the rest of the group so this type of solution, we will try it out here linked to maturity and demand of subscribers and perhaps in some of the other markets they do not meet the demand. So it will be a phased approach.”