Vodacom launches 5G in South Africa as broadband market looks vulnerable
With some lockdown protocols still in place and low broadband penetration, launching 5G with a fixed wireless access (FWA) spin is telecoms opportunism at its finest.
With some lockdown protocols still in place and low broadband penetration, launching 5G with a fixed wireless access (FWA) spin is telecoms opportunism at its finest.
Liquid Telecom has said it plans to launch a 5G wholesale network in all major South African cities in early 2020.
Swedish kit vendor Ericsson is helping out MTN South Africa with its 5G RAN, transport and core.
With the FCC announcing the results of its latest spectrum auction, we’re having a look at how the networks and supporting ecosystems are developing around the world.
Helios Towers has entered into a partnership with Vulatel to form a joint venture to build out wireless and fixed line open-access infrastructure in South Africa.
Following rumours earlier this year that Standard Bank had plans to launch an MVNO, the South African bank has finally confirmed the not so secret news.
Ericsson has teamed up with operator MTN to undertake what they claim is the first 5G technology and applications trial in Africa.
Kicking off Telecoms.com’s week-long road trip in South Africa, we’re going to start with Orange’s efforts to improve connectivity in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The South African Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services has stressed the growing significance of the internet in the development of the continent’s business and education sectors, but also stated that connectivity is becoming an imperative for society on an individual level.
MTN is looking into the possibility of acquiring a majority stake in fellow South African telco Telkom in a bid to challenge the country’s dominant provider Vodacom, a Bloomberg report has claimed.
Alcatel-Lucent has announced it will build a gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) solution for Vodacom in South Africa. The vendor claimed the solution will enable Vodacom to expand its subscriber base, and provide ‘ultra-broadband’ for bandwidth-hungry activities such as video streaming and online gaming.
The South African mobile operator subsidiary of UK-headquartered Vodafone has announced an agreement to acquire the market’s second largest fixed communications provider, Neotel, in a cash deal worth ZAR7.0bn ($673m). Negotiations between Vodacom and Neotel were announced in September last year, when Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub pledged to pump significant investment into the merged entity should talks prove fruitful.
South African mobile service reseller Nashua Mobile, which trades in subscriptions for the country’s main operators, is to close operations and sell its 750,000 users to Vodacom and MTN. The company is also looking to offload its Cell C customer base to a third party.
MVNOs in Africa should focus on the premium end of the market rather than offer low-cost ‘no frills’ services, according to Bjorn Florman, chief executive, wholesale business at Cell C. The South African mobile operator is one of the relatively small number of networks in the region that has wholeheartedly opened its network to MVNOs.
A greenfield LTE operator that has launched this year in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda would “happily prioritise Skype traffic” at the expense of standards-based voice services if that is what the market demanded, its chief operating officer has told Telecoms.com.
South African operator Telkom has written down the value of its assets by R12bn ($1.2bn) following a review by its board. The operator said the decision to revalue it’s assets is important in enabling it to become competitive and efficient.
US white space specialist Carlson Wireless has teamed up with Google to launch the first wireless broadband trial using TV white space in South Africa. The test case will focus on offering wireless connectivity to ten schools across the Cape Town area in an attempt to show that broadband can be offered over white spaces without interfering with licensed spectrum holders.
MTN has chosen equipment vendor Ericsson to launch its LTE network in South Africa, which following a year-long trial is now live in the Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban areas. LTE has not been deployed in the city of Cape Town at present.
The arrival of LTE brings with it promises of simplified network architecture, lower cost per MB, higher throughput and lower latency. But deploying LTE services in Africa is not without major challenges, as MTN South Africa’s CTO Kanagaratnam Lambotharan outlined on the first day of the AfricaCom 2012 event in Cape Town.
South African fixed line and mobile operator Telkom has announced that its CEO Nombulelo Moholi will step down from her role. Moholi will serve a six-month notice period while the board seeks her replacement.
A look back at the biggest stories this week https://t.co/aBE5p4pAjP #4GLTE #4K8KVideo
23 May 2020 @ 09:53:02 UTC
US ramps up the '5G race' rhetoric https://t.co/hbkjQpxzKb #5G #6G
22 May 2020 @ 12:36:32 UTC
Apple belatedly looks to refocus on podcasts https://t.co/nrxhJo0q8j #ContentApplications #Apple
22 May 2020 @ 11:13:33 UTC
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