Vodacom launches Africa’s first live 5G network

Earlier this month, Vodacom launched Africa’s first live 5G network in its home market of South Africa. Service is initially available in three cities – Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town – with further rollouts planned to other parts of the country. This network will support both mobile and fixed wireless services and is currently available on twenty live 5G sites, 18 of which are in Gauteng and 2 in Cape Town.

Vodacom was recently assigned temporary spectrum by ICASA for the duration of the national state of disaster, including 1 x 50 MHz in the 3.5 GHz band, which has been used to fast-track our 5G launch. It also makes Vodacom the first operator to activate temporary spectrum in South Africa. Vodacom and Liquid Telecom also concluded managed network services and national roaming agreements for a national 5G network in December 2019.

Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO, says: “Vodacom’s 5G launch in South Africa comes at an important time as it will help us improve our network efficiency during the COVID-19 national state of disaster. During this difficult and unprecedented period, we are proud to offer world class network technology to South Africa, and all of its associated benefits, as we provide an essential service to keep the country connected. This is largely due to the allocation of temporary spectrum by ICASA which has already mitigated the network congestion we have experienced since the start of the lockdown period.”

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Vodacom launches a commercial 5G FWA service in Lesotho

Vodacom launched a standards-based, commercial 5G service in Lesotho, the landlocked kingdom encircled by South Africa.

Vodacom's 5G service is delivering Fixed-Wireless Access broadband services to two enterprise customers in Lesotho. The service uses 3.5GHz spectrum.

Vodacom said it has deployed the same standards-based 5G technology in South Africa, where it reports speeds in excess of 700 Mbps and latencies of less than 10 milliseconds. The carrier expects to boost the downlink to 1 Gbps or more as new software versions and devices become available. Until such time as 3.5GHz spectrum becomes available to Vodacom South Africa, this network will not be available to its customers.

Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group Chief Executive Officer, says: “Vodacom prides itself on being a market leader and we are extremely pleased to be first to deliver 5G services to customers in Africa. What we’ve accomplished in Lesotho is an example of what can be achieved in Africa, should the requisite spectrum also be made available. Vodacom South Africa has been granted a temporary spectrum license of 100MHz in the 3.5GHz band to showcase the same standards-based 5G network capabilities in South Africa.

http://www.vodacom.co.ls/ls-personal/offers/voice-and-data-plans/data-plans/5g

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Vodafone to transfer 35% interest in Safaricom to Vodacom

Vodafone Group announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., has agreed to transfer part of its indirect shareholding in Safaricom, serving around 28 million subscribers in East and Central Africa, to Vodacom Group, its sub-Saharan Africa subsidiary.

Under the terms of the transaction, Vodafone will exchange a 35% indirect interest in Safaricom for 226.8 million new ordinary Vodacom shares. The transaction, which is valued at approximately Euro 2,361 million based on Vodacom's closing share price on May 12th, 2017, will increase Vodafone's ownership in Vodacom from 65% to 70%. Vodafone will continue to hold a 5% indirect stake in Safaricom following the transfer, in addition to the indirect interest held via Vodacom.

As part of the transaction, Vodafone Group has provided assurances to the government of Kenya relating to the ongoing operation of the long standing partnership between Safaricom, the Vodafone Group and the Kenyan Government.

The transaction is expected to allow Vodafone Group to streamlines and simplify the management of its sub-Saharan African holdings and to strengthen alignment and cooperation between Safaricom and Vodacom throughput the region and internationally. More specifically, Vodacom will strengthen its position in the Kenyan market.

Vodafone currently holds a 40% indirect interest in Safaricom through wholly-owned subsidiary Vodafone Kenya (VKL). Vodacom has agreed to acquire an 87.5% shareholding in VKL, representing a 35% indirect interest in Safaricom; Vodafone will retain the remaining 12.5% shareholding in VKL, representing a 5% indirect interest in Safaricom.

As part of the transaction, Vodacom is to issue 226.8 million new ordinary shares to Vodafone, which values the effective 35% indirect interest in Safaricom at approximately Euro 2,361 million. The implied exchange ratio of 1.62 new Vodacom shares for every 100 Safaricom shares compares to an implied exchange ratio of 1.56 based on the 90 day VWAP, 1.63 based on the 180 day VWAP and 1.72 based on the closing prices on May 12th.

After closing of the transaction, Vodafone will continue to report direct and indirect holdings in Safaricom under the equity method. Vodafone noted that closing of the transaction is subject to conditions including approvals from Vodacom minority shareholders, from the Financial Surveillance Department of the South African Reserve Bank and confirmation from the Kenya Capital Markets Authority that the transaction does not obligate Vodacom to make a mandatory bid for Safaricom.

The transaction is currently expected to close in the third quarter of 2017.

https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/media/vodafone-group-releases/2017/safaricom-share-transfer.html

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Vodacom Deploys Base station in Shipping Container is SA

Vodacom is testing the use of shipping containers to provide an all-in-one solution for base stations deployed in townships in South Africa.

The carrier said its standard mobile base station typically has a site footprint of 30 square metres or more, including mast, which is usually 15-25 metres tall. In addition, each base station site has an equipment storage building to house radio and power equipment. The cost of each installation varies, but can be in the region of R1.5 million (circa £82,000).

Vodacom’s Chief Technology Officer Andries Delport said, “We’re seeing data volumes in Gauteng’s townships almost doubling year on year, which is well-ahead of the average growth rate countrywide. Identifying and building new sites to cater for this in densely populated areas has been difficult, and on top of that site security can be an issue.

“Our engineers went back to the drawing board and developed an entirely different approach. They repackaged the base station equipment inside a compact steel structure that is then bolted to the roof of existing shipping container shops. This means that new sites can be rolled out quite literally within weeks as opposed to the typical 12-18 month lead time to build new base stations.”

In addition to having a smaller footprint of nine square meters and being able to utilise existing infrastructure, these new base stations are more energy efficient and cost less than half the amount needed to build a traditional site (around R700,000/£38,000).

Vodacom plans to roll out five sites as an initial test, the first of which to go live is in the Alexandra township. These test sites provide mobile coverage over a radius of up to 1.5km and can service 5,000 subscribers at peak times.

http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/what/technology-blog.html

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Vodacom South Africa Picks ALU for GPON

Vodacom South Africa has selected Alcatel-Lucent to build a gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) solution for enterprise and residential markets.

Specifically, Vodacom plans to deploy a new converged network in all major centers in South Africa, including Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, reaching 250,000  homes and businesses within the next three years. Alcatel-Lucent is providing its 7360 ISAM FX for GPON services, as well as Customer Experience Management Platform using Motive Home Device Manager and Network Analyzer Fiber. The project also includes Professional Services, Operations Support Systems (OSS) deployment and Managed Services.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-build-converged-network-vodacom-south-africa

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