Vodacom LTE expansion on track

·23 Nov 2012

Vodacom said today (23 November 2012) that its LTE rollout is ahead of schedule, with over 400 LTE-enabled base stations live on its network.

The company added that it will easily meet its own target of 500 LTE sites by the end of 2012.

Vodacom also announced the commercial launch of LTE services in Durban – the third city to benefit from LTE after Johannesburg and Pretoria. Cape Town is expected to follow before the end of the year.

“The fact that our engineers have been able to reach over 400 LTE-enabled sites in such a short space of time is no mean feat. Their hard work has meant that today we can be the first operator in South Africa to provide our customers with a commercial LTE service in Durban,” said Alberts Breed, Vodacom’s managing executive in KZN.

“To start off with, 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. The plan is to have over 60 sites up and running across KwaZulu-Natal by the end of the first quarter of next year,” said Breed.

“What’s more, we have also recently completed a total upgrade of the existing network in the province. This upgrade, together with the launch of LTE, has increased capacity and improved our overall network performance.”

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, was first launched in South Africa by Vodacom in October this year. The technology offers higher speeds and lower latency than 3G.

For customers wanting to connect to the LTE network, Vodacom stocks a number of LTE devices which are available at selected stores across Gauteng and KZN. All these devices will automatically switch to the 3G network when LTE coverage is not available.