South African mobile phone operator Vodacom Group will commit more than 9 billion rand (US$589 million) this year for boosting telecom network particularly in rural areas in its home market
Vodafone owned British headquartered Vodocom, invested 9.6 billion rand in 2018, particularly for the rural coverage. The company is preparing to replace and modernize base stations and digital services. Of late, the company is focusing on rural coverage and currently it has 16 million people with 4G/LTE services. Vodocoom’s 3G networks can be accessed by 97% of the South African population living in rural areas, whereas 4G is available to 75% of the rural population. This, the telecom major, has achieved despite the lack of available spectrum. Vodacom has made substantial progress in improving network coverage in both rural and deep rural areas of South Africa. The rural land makes up 98.6% of the total land area in South Africa. That is the reason for the focus on rural penetration by the company.
Vodacom has network operations in 32 African countries including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo , Mozambique, Lesotho and provides business services to Nigeria, Zambia,, Angola, Kenya and Cameron.
