Mobile service provider MTN has announced that they have increased their LTE footprint to engage a wider audience in South Africa and will offer the service to contract and Top-Up customers.
“MTN has announced that it is offering the latest international broadband technology in wireless communication of high-speed data to its contract and Top-Up customers. Customers are now able to access Long-Term Evolution (LTE) over an extended South African footprint, offering faster broadband speeds and a better Internet experience at no charge,” MTN said in a statement.
Serame Taukobong, Chief Marketing Officer at MTN also confirmed that pre-paid LTE packages are on the cards, and will be launched soon.
“MTN customers can now access broadband speeds of up to 70mbps – in the palm of their hands. The LTE packages for the prepaid markets are currently under development and MTN will announce their availability in due time.”
The company confirmed that new customers need to purchase a 128K LTE simcard and subscribe to the free LTE VAS service, while existing customers with an LTE capable device can also access LTE at no cost.
MTN rolled out LTE in South Africa in December 2012 in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, and plans to extend the coverage to other major cities by the end of the year.
“MTN has made significant investments preparing for the LTE rollout by modernising over 1600 base station sites and activating HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access) on close to 1000 sites in 2012. Most of the sites have been 10Mhz re-farmed, which will provide faster connection speeds than other local cellular service providers’ LTE offerings,” it said.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
