Vodacom Eastern Cape Region plans to invest more than US$1.1mn in the network across the province during the 2020/2021 financial year
This network investment will help the region bridge the digital divide so that citizens in deep rural and urban areas have the same network experience as those living in urban areas.
The capital expenditure for Vodacom Eastern Cape Region will go towards deploying 20 new base stations in urban areas and 18 new base stations in rural areas. In addition, the region will invest in modernising more than 80 sites in urban areas to unlock additional network capacity and higher download speeds.
The region will also be upgrading 4G capacity on 102 urban towers and 48 rural towers, deploying new LTE on 27 rural towers and implementing 3G capacity upgrades on 148 urban towers and 268 on rural towers. The region will critically install more than 90 new Microwave broadband connections to rural towers.
Mpumelelo Khumalo, managing executive for Vodacom Eastern Cape Region, said, “The upgrades will increase network capacity, and this will help us to provide our customers super-fast Internet speeds, great quality voice and reduce dropped calls. In particular, the investment will ensure that many people, who only had access to 2G and 3G, will be able to access internet for the first time through 4G/LTE networks at a time when data traffic growth since lockdown stands at 50 per cent.”
The network of the Vodacom Eastern Region extends from Albertinia in the Western Cape and covers all of the Eastern Cape, including Kokstad in KwaZulu Natal.
