{"id":62240,"date":"2012-10-15T11:15:25","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T09:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=62240"},"modified":"2012-10-16T08:43:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T06:43:58","slug":"why-vodacom-launched-lte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/62240-why-vodacom-launched-lte.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Vodacom launched LTE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe reason I came back form Spain and decided to launch [LTE] is because I felt we were falling behind,\u201d Vodacom<\/a> CEO Shameel Joosub<\/a> told attendees of a South African Communications Forum breakfast event on Monday (15 October 2012).<\/p>\n

Vodacom launched a commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE<\/a>) offering at the MyBroadband conference on Wednesday, 10 October 2012.<\/p>\n

However, the advertised coverage area for Vodacom\u2019s LTE network only extends to a small portion of Johannesburg and Midrand.<\/p>\n

Joosub re-iterated the call for high-demand spectrum to be made available, particularly in the lower frequency digital dividend band.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat can give us the full power of LTE and let us cover the whole country,\u201d Joosub said.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom

Vodacom LTE coverage map in Johannesburg<\/p><\/div>\n

The digital dividend is a portion of frequency spectrum set to become available when South Africa completes its migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting.<\/p>\n

This requires that old analogue TV broadcasts be switched off, making way for other services to use the frequencies they once occupied.<\/p>\n

Minister of Communications, Dina Pule<\/a>, said earlier this month that the Department of Communications<\/a> is aiming to complete the migration by December 2013.<\/p>\n

Joosub concluded his presentation by saying that it is a travesty to starve companies of spectrum with the resources to make use of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s work together and let\u2019s deliver 2020,\u201d Joosub said, referring to the government\u2019s plan to have broadband for all South Africans by 2020.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

New analogue TV signal switch-off deadline<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom LTE tested, and it\u2019s fast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Prices must come down: Cell C, Vodacom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Frequency migration comments deadline extended<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LTE spectrum policy drafted<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom CEO sheds light on why they launched LTE with the limited footprint they have right now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":62260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[247,4190,6002,35,2490,1958,41],"class_list":["post-62240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-digital-dividend","tag-digital-migration","tag-dina-pule","tag-headline","tag-lte","tag-shameel-joosub","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62252,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62240\/revisions\/62252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}