MTN South Africa deploys 1,000 LTE-enabled sites

Krishna Chetty, MTN South Africa’s general manager of radio planning and optimisation, has revealed that the operator’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) network has been extended to cover three million people, with just under 1,000 LTE-enabled base transceiver stations (BTS) deployed across the country. Online portal MyBroadband quotes the executive as stating that MTN covers 99% of the country’s population with 2G technology, while 3G technology is available to 75% of the population. Chetty added that the company will continue to roll out more sites, with plans to invest around ZAR4 billion (USD355 million) in upgrades, admitting that the lack of available 4G spectrum remains a stumbling block.