Vodacom extends LTE offering to prepaid subscribers

Vodacom has become the first network in South Africa to offer LTE services to all its customers. 

Vodacom was the first operator to launch commercial LTE services in South Africa in October 2012.

The service was initially available to contract customers, but with increased LTE coverage and a much wider range of devices now available, LTE services have now also been made available to prepaid and top up customers.

"We started out with 70 LTE capable base stations in Gauteng, and just five months on we’ve now got approaching 600 live LTE sites covering Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban. Another 400 are planned by the end of the year,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom CEO.

Vodacom is investing more than ZAR6 billion (US$648 million) per year in South Africa, adding extensively to the network of 3G base stations as well as building LTE coverage. At current rates, the number of 3G base stations is growing at around 25 per cent per year.