Rain to suspend fixed-LTE sales
Rain announced it will suspend the sale of its fixed-LTE products through partner ISPs, due to capacity constraints on its network.
Partner ISPs have been told to temporarily stop sales of Rain fixed-LTE products from 1 November 2018.
Rain’s fixed LTE offering is available through a number of ISPs, including Afrihost, Axxess, and Webafrica.
The company said the popularity of its mobile products and its strong fixed-LTE sales have put strain on its network, requiring the operator to manage its network capacity by temporarily halting fixed-LTE sales.
“Due to the strong sales of our fixed wireless offering through ISPs, and the successful launch of our mobile product, we are rapidly utilising the currently-available capacity on our network,” Rain CEO Willem Roos told MyBroadband.
“In order to ensure a continued great experience for all our customers, we have decided to suspend new sales of the fixed-wireless offering for the present time.”
Existing customers with Rain fixed-LTE connections will not be affected by this change, but new customers will not be able to order the product through ISPs from November.
Improving capacity
Roos noted that sales of Rain’s mobile product remain unaffected by the network constraints and that robust demand continues for the company’s R50-per-gig data plan.
He said the company would revisit its decision on fixed-LTE sales as it continues to build its LTE network, improving capacity and coverage across South Africa.
“We will endeavour to grow our coverage and capacity in all the major metros in South Africa,” said Roos.
He said Rain plans to expand its LTE network rapidly, and the company currently has 2,200 active towers. It plans to roll out another 2,800 towers over the next 30 months.
As the capacity of the Rain LTE network increases, the network’s fixed-LTE products may become available again through ISPs – but Rain did not confirm when the products would return.
Rain fixed-LTE products are still listed on partner ISP websites, with new activations being provisioned until 31 October 2018.
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