{"id":6370,"date":"2008-12-17T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T12:03:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-17T14:03:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T12:03:00","slug":"zain-versus-mtn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/6370-zain-versus-mtn.html","title":{"rendered":"Zain versus MTN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kuwait-based wireless carrier Zain this week launched its 3.5G network in Ghana, a territory dominated by local operator MTN Group.<\/p>\n<p>Zain, which operates in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa, has invested over $420m in Ghana and will rapidly be rolling out network infrastructure across the country as part of its stated goal of becoming the world&#8217;s top 10 mobile operator by 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana, where mobile penetration is estimated to be just over 40%, is dominated by MTN with about five million subscribers, well ahead of its closest rival Millicom International with nearly 2.5m.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Ghana is important to Zain and we have invested heavily in bringing the latest technology to create the best network in West Africa,&quot; said Zain Group CEO Saad Al Barrak in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to today&#8217;s launch, Zain Ghana undertook what it called &quot;a highly successful&quot; pre-registration campaign, signing up customers to its new network.<\/p>\n<p>In November, Zain said it was mulling five acquisitions worth as much as $4bn in Africa and the Middle East before 2010, as the global financial crisis depresses asset prices.<\/p>\n<p>Zain recently raised R4.5bn via the issue of new shares to existing shareholders. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zain this week launched its 3.5G network in Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}