MTN SA invested ZAR30bn in network upgrades over three years

MTN South Africa has invested ZAR30 billion (USD2.1 billion) in network upgrades over three years, with a strong focus on deploying LTE services in the 900MHz band. MTN South Africa’s executive for corporate affairs Jacqui O’Sullivan told MyBroadband that the operator had rolled out approximately 2,700 new LTE-900 sites over the last few months, which contributed to a 4% increase in population coverage, to 87%. The upgrades also included improved radio design, new technology features (4×4 MIMO, carrier aggregation [CA] and 256 QAM modulation), higher radio base station backhaul capacity, and expanded core transport and IP data network capacity.