South African wireless operator Cell C has demonstrated download speeds of 138Mbps utilising LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology at the AfricaCom trade show in Cape Town. The trial, which was performed in cooperation with Huawei Technologies, utilised the Chinese vendor’s LampSite indoor coverage solution, which uses carrier aggregation (CA) technology. Cell C, however, disclosed that the service will not be introduced commercially until additional spectrum has been made available.
TeleGeography notes that only Telkom currently offers LTE-A services in South Africa. The LTE-A network was trialled in the upscale Johannesburg suburb of Parkview in mid-November 2014, and a week later commercial services with peak download speeds of 150Mbps were introduced. Vodacom also demonstrated the platform, in September 2014, but has yet to introduce commercial LTE-A services due to a lack of spectrum.