Photo by: Bloomberg
Telecommunications group MTN has extended its long-term evolution (LTE) network to cover some areas within Port Elizabeth.
MTN, which launched commercial LTE in 2012, now connected three-million South Africans in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Durban metropolitan areas to the high-speed, new generation network using about 1 000 LTE-enabled towers.
“The commercial roll-out of LTE to Port Elizabeth represents another milestone for MTN, which remains the first operator in South Africa to pilot LTE in July 2011,” said MTN chief technology officer Eben Albertyn in a statement on Wednesday.
The operator continued to progressively extend the network to other cities and peri-urban areas.
“Providing MTN customers with the fastest possible Internet speeds enables [them] to run their business more efficiently [and] engage with people from all over the world more effectively,” Albertyn explained.
A speed test earlier this year determined that MTN’s LTE download speeds reached 33.89 Mb/s, with upload speeds of 8.48 Mb/s.
“This means LTE customers can upload a photo in six seconds, download a song in four seconds, and complete movie downloads in minutes,” Albertyn said.
He added that the uptake of LTE in Port Elizabeth was likely to assist in the adoption of tablets, cloud computing services and other consumer and business-critical applications that enabled competitiveness in the “connected” landscape.
“Not only will it help South Africa and the continent bridge the digital divide by bringing information and communication technology services to rural and under-serviced areas, but it will also enable customers to access information in a more multimedia-rich way than was possible before,” Albertyn concluded.