MTN launches Zambia’s first LTE network

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

MTN 4GOne of Zambia’s largest mobile operators, MTN Zambia, announced this week the launch of the country’s first commercial LTE network. The announcement was made by the mobile operator’s Zambia Chief Executive Officer Abdul Ismail. The new faster broadband service will cover Lusaka (the capital), Kitwe, Ndola and Livingstone. Zambia joins 6 other countries in the region that already have live LTE implementations: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Mauritius and Uganda.

It’s been predicted by experts that 2014 will be the year of significant progress in the rollout of LTE networks on the African continent.

LTE is one of the latest standards in mobile network technology providing higher speed internet (theoretical download speed of up to 300 Mbit/s) than the ‘current’ 3G. LTE is an advancement based on the same technologies that Econet, NetOne and Telecel use on their networks (GSM/UMTS).

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8 comments

  1. Gweja

    LTE is the greatest Telecoms lie ever. We “have” it in SA and guess what, still takes donkey years to browse the internet!

  2. Anthony Somerset

    didnt econet roll it out in the centre of Harare? where is that? i’ve been to CBD and never get LTE on my iphone5

    1. Guest

      Your line is the one that is not provisioned for that service.

      1. L.S.M. Kabweza

        i hear its the phone that’s actually not. Apparently Apple configures phones for for each LTE network separately, and since our iphones are grey imports in one way or the other…
        This is why the LTE is only available via Econet’s own dongles

        1. Anthony Somerset

          interesting – i wonder how we can get it enabled then…

          1. Fourwallsinaroom

            In order to get LTE service, I had to get a dongle then use that line in my phone. Be warned getting econet to activate voice is a pain however and so far I have never been able to call via LTE. I think they are still integrating.

            1. Anthony Somerset

              so as i thought, a load of media hype… but not much actual service then?

  3. LTEguy

    LSM, nice article but can we get technical specs if possible? Who is providing the backhual, what frequency etc. I suspect Liquid as I have it from some interesting sources that LTZ, Net One and MTN have an agreement in place for minutes and traffic.

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