According to Developingtelecoms (14 July), South Africa's Vodacom and Kenya's Telkom have announced plans to invest in better networking equipment to expand their mobile networks.
Vodacom says it plans to invest more than $29.4 million in its mobile network in the Western Cape province this year to expand coverage, increase capacity and extend uptime.
It said a major investment in the network would help the region expand connectivity in cities, remote rural areas and towns that were previously unconnected or poorly connected.
Almost 90% of Vodacom's data traffic is transmitted through 4G technology, so that traffic will also be used to expand 4G capacity at 530 sites across the region.
Vodacom noted that network investment of more than 1.5 billion rand ($88.2 million) in the Western Cape over the past three years has enabled it to connect 38 new sites and upgrade 4G capacity of more than 75 percent of its existing 1,659 base stations in the past year.
Ongoing investments have already provided 3G coverage to 98% of the population of the Western Cape, with 96% of the region's citizens enjoying 4G coverage. As for 5G, Vodacom has 49 5G base stations in the region and plans to triple that footprint in the region this year.