Vodacom turns on new 4G and 5G base stations in Limpopo

Vodacom has activated 10 new base station sites this week, including two 5G and eight 4G LTE sites, to connect scores of people in Malamulela, Polokwane, Lebowakgomo, Burgersfort and Hoedspruit who previously had no connectivity.

This deployment now connects residents of rural areas, villages, and townships to the newest and fastest network technologies.

“Providing network connectivity for people in remote areas remains central to Vodacom’s commitment to extending network coverage for people who reside in deep rural areas of the country,” said Vodacom.

“This is part of Vodacom’s vision to make sure that it connects everyone – whether they live in the cities, townships or in rural areas – and that requires significant investment.”

Omphile Mosegedi, Executive Head for Operations for the Vodacom Limpopo region, added: “We have set our sights on removing barriers and enabling citizens of the province in rural and township areas to have the same network experience as those who reside in urban areas.”

“On a practical basis, this means that we’ll be bringing faster data services to tens of thousands of people who currently only have voice services and EDGE data services. On top of this, the upgrades have increased network capacity and provided improved voice quality and enhanced mobile data speeds.”

Leading provider in Gauteng

The launch of the new base stations in Limpopo follows Vodacom recently being ranked as the top mobile voice network in Gauteng by MyBroadband Insights.

MyBroadband Insights assessed the performance of the four major South African mobile voice networks on key performance indicators such as Call Setup Time, Call Setup Success Ratio, Dropped Call Ratio, and Speech Quality Mean Opinion Score.

These tests showed that Vodacom was the top performer in Gauteng, with an overall score of 88.4.

It boasted the lowest Call Setup Time at only 1.26 seconds and a 100% Call Setup Success Ratio.