MTN pilots LTE in Cape Town

November 8, 2011 11:24 am 0 comments

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Mobile operator, MTN, today announced that it will pilot its Long Term Evolution technology (LTE) in Cape Town.

Speaking at the 2011 AfricaCom conference, Kanagaratnam Lambotharan, MTN SA Chief Technology Officer said positive feedback from stakeholders since the Gauteng pilot kicked off in July this year had informed the decision to pilot the technology in MTN.

“It is the first time that the Mother City has been connected to this new generation network that MTN is piloting in conjunction with Ericsson

AfricaCom an annual telecommunications conference, attracting over 5 000 delegates from across the world. MTN says the pilot of MTN’s LTE network resonates with the theme of this year’s conference: Advancing Innovation and Profitability for a Digital Africa.

The deployment of the LTE network at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Cape Town follows a large scale LTE pilot covering over 100 sites in Gauteng.

Lambotharan adds that it was only natural that a big metropolitan city such as Cape Town should enjoy the benefits of this new generation network.

“What better way could MTN demonstrate the benefit of this new technology than at AfricaCom where there is a captive audience,” he said.

Earlier this year MTN in partnership with Huawei and Ericsson, undertook a pilot of the LTE technology that will see selected MTN customers with provisioned dongles navigating on an ultra-high speed network that boasts speeds of up to 70Mbps across over 100 sites.

MTN says its technical team and partners have been working at full throttle to ensure that we have the technology on the ground for the duration of AfricaCom.

“We are confident that the pilot in Cape Town will elevate customer experience in the Mother City and give our stakeholders an invaluable opportunity to optimally tap into future services and applications that the LTE ecosystem is expected to provide,” he says.

The LTE network will only be available at the ICC for the duration of AfricaCom between 9 and 10 November. MTN says it expects to commercially roll out this new generation network nationally within the next two to three years once the regulator allocates the required spectrum.

Cell and Vodacom are also piloting the technology at the moment. MTN refarmed 1800 GHZ sites in Cape Town and ensured that its 3G data network is LTE compliant.

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