MTN Uganda has announced plans to deploy a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in Uganda during the coming months, which will make it the first to offer this Technology in East Africa. Popularly known as 4G, LTE is a ‘standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals’. A 4G system provides mobile ultra-broadband Internet access.
The company has announced the Network Infrastructure upgrade plan which will provide customers with “world class data access and speed of up to 100Mbps”.
According to the company MTN data customer will be able to use the increase in data speed to enjoy faster access to Internet and superior quality live streaming and video chatting to mention a few.
The company plans to roll out the 4G network in the next few months.
MTN has extended its fibre network by laying optical fibre and built regional switching centres in the North, East, West and Central regions.
In 2013 alone, MTN Uganda plans to invest USD 70 million on top of the USD 80 million spent in 2012. This investment has been mainly in expanding the network infrastructure to support the mobile subscribers growth as well as rollout new innovative products and digital solutions.
“MTN remains committed to development of the ICT sector and the Ugandan economy. LTE becomes the new standard determining the level of Technology development and offering substantially faster data speed than other technologies” said Mazen Mroué, MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer.
The World Bank estimates that in Africa a 10 percent rise in broadband penetration is linked to a 1.3 percent increase in economic growth.
MTN Uganda has deployed close to 2,800km of fibre backbone and has, over the past six months, rolled out 81 new base transmission sites to new coverage areas while commissioning another batch of capacity sites. The mobile services operator has a total of 1100 sites at the end of 2012.
“The continuous CAPEX investment by MTN is aimed at providing our customers with the best possible user experience across the country. We would like to ensure consistently reliable network quality for all existing customers and also to enable many more new subscribers to enjoy the Mobile Technology.” said Rami Farah, MTN Uganda Chief Technical Officer.
Over the past couple of years MTN has also made backhaul links expansion and enhancements to the Mombasa submarine cables (EASSY and TEAMS). This has enabled connectivity with the rest of the world while providing better connectivity and high level redundancy for voice and data services.
Staff Writer
