OREANDA-NEWS. October 10, 2012. Vodacom Group, a subsidiary of Vodafone, today launched the first commercial 4G LTE service in South Africa. The service will initially be accessible to customers via approximately 70 base stations in Johannesburg with other South African cities to follow in the near future.

Today’s announcement follows similar launches by Vodafone in Germany and Portugal, enabling Vodacom to draw on their experience of offering commercial 4G services. Vodafone Germany had 193, 000 customers using the service in rural and urban areas at 30 June 2012, providing around 35% household coverage.

Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub said: “Vodacom was the first network in South Africa to test 4G LTE more than two years ago, and since then we’ve been busy upgrading base stations and our fibre-optic transmission network in preparation for today. It is great to claim another South African first and even more pleasing that South Africa has joined an exclusive club with the fastest mobile connectivity on offer.”

4G LTE represents a major improvement in mobile connectivity speeds and capacity. The Vodacom service has the potential to operate at more than double the speed of any existing mobile connection within the country and offers users jitter-free video, and almost instantaneous music and picture downloads.