Vodacom ramps up rural coverage
Vodacom has outlined accelerated plans to expand network coverage for people who live in deep rural areas of South Africa.
The operator said it will bring faster data services to tens of thousands more people living in rural areas who currently only have voice services and EDGE data services.
Additional investment will increase network capacity, help provide improved voice quality and will enhance mobile data speeds in rural areas, it said.
Andries Delport, chief technology officer for Vodacom Group said: “Network accessibility for people who reside in rural areas remains central to Vodacom’s commitment of extending network coverage to all South Africans, irrespective of class and economic status. It is our firm view that broadband penetration has transformative power and is an enabler for economic and social growth and as such, makes it an essential tool for empowering people in rural areas.”
Vodacom said it has already committed to roll out to an additional 150 small deep rural communities in this year alone, mostly located in KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, North West and the Free State.
The operator said it has already achieved 99.9% urban and 99.6% of rural population voice coverage and 99.9% urban and 95.6% of rural population data coverage.
“While this presents a tremendous achievement, we are now looking at innovative ways to connect the outstanding 4.4% rural population with data coverage and 0.4% population with voice coverage. What makes this challenging is poor available infrastructure and the very low population density, meaning that many base stations have to be built to cover the remaining rural areas,” it said.
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