Neotel prepares for LTE launch

South Africa’s second landline operator, Neotel is planning a launch of its own LTE network with a formal announcement expected to be made August 21.

The launch event comes just ahead of the company’s own deadline of launching its LTE network by September. Coverage is expected to be concentrated near the largest city of Johannesburg with 50 base stations and will be based on the company’s 1800MHz spectrum.

However, the Neotel is unlikely to shake up the other mobile networks too much as it is widely expected to be sold – with the buyer expected to be Vodacom.

Vodacom is said to be the last company running its eye over Neotel’s accounts after rival MTN dropped out of bidding.

The advantage for Vodacom apart from Neotel’s LTE network and radio spectrum would be access to a much larger landline network for backhaul and to cross sell to corporate users.