South Africa’s Liquid Telecom plans billions of rand to build a national 4G/LTE network in the country. This will offer wholesale roaming services to other operators from early 2019, the company said.
The company tactic is to provide wholesale access to the network to mobile operators and Internet service providers via its spectrum in the 1.8GHz band. Liquid Telecom South Africa CEO, Reshaad Sha in a statement said, the network will be designed to “meet the needs of the most demanding users across the country.”
Although, it hasn’t disclosed how it intends to deploy the network or how wide its coverage will be when it opens the network to other operators early next year.
Liquid Telecom Group, owned by Econet Group — the business founded by Zimbabwean billionaire, Strive Masiyiwa — acquired South Africa’s Neotel from Tata Communications in 2017. Neotel was then rebranded as Liquid Telecom South Africa.
See Also: Liquid Telecoms Receives $180 Million Fund to Boost its Network in Africa
Liquid Telecom recently won a $180 million (141.42 million pounds) investment from British development finance agency CDC Group, which will be used to deliver high-speed broadband further into central and western Africa.
“Our announcement today caps a busy and successful year which includes our recent announcement of a US$180-million investment in Liquid Telecom by CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution. This will enable us to expand our broadband connectivity to some of the most underserved communities across the African continent,” said Liquid Telecom Group CEO Nic Rudnick in the statement.
“This milestone builds on a remarkable year for Liquid Telecom. I am encouraged that the momentum will continue into 2019 with South African operators having access to wholesale roaming services across our network for the first time.”
