South Africa’s Mobile service provider Vodacom has started to offer LTE services to all its customers.  Operator launched commercial LTE services in South Africa in October 2012.

South Africa’s Mobile service provider Vodacom has started to offer LTE services to all its customers.  Operator launched 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.

Vodacom started out with 70 LTE capable base stations in Gauteng, and is now approaching 600 live LTE sites covering Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban. Another 400 are planned by the end of the year.

All customers who have a Vodacom supported LTE capable device will be automatically provisioned for the LTE service within 24 hours of the device being registered on the network. There’s no additional charge for LTE

According to Vodacom, it is investing more than R6 billion 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 year.