Liquid Telecom South Africa, part of the pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, has announced that it will establish a multi-billion Rand 4G network in South Africa
The telecom company said in a statement that wholesale roaming services will be made available across its network nationwide from early 2019.
Liquid Telecom, which acquired Neotel from Tata Communications in February 2017, has been investing heavily across the continent where it operates Africa’s largest independent fibre network that is almost 70,000km in length and linked to more than 600 towns and cities in 13 countries.
This investment includes the recent completion of its ‘Cape to Cairo’ network, which represents the first direct land-based terrestrial fibre link on the continent.
Liquid Telecom South Africa CEO Reshaad Sha commented, “This is an exciting development which will enable us to provide mobile network operators and ISPs with open access to our mobile 4G network. Using our 1800MHz spectrum, the network will handle 4G mobile data traffic to meet the needs of the most demanding users across the country.”
Nic Rudnick, Group CEO of Liquid Telecom, added, “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.”
“Our announcement caps a busy and successful year which includes our recent announcement of a US$180mn investment in Liquid Telecom by CDC Group Plc, 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,” he explained.
In December, Liquid Telecom also reached an agreement with Telecom Egypt to invest US$400mn in Egypt over the next three years as a connectivity and cloud solutions provider for the first time in North Africa, serving businesses in the region with a network and data centre services.
