South African carrier
Vodacom
has announced that it will begin trialing 3G services in South Africa
during July, becoming the first 3G carrier on the African continent. It has
a temporary 3G license from the regulator ICASA.
Rival MTN also plans to roll out 3G and EDGE services.
Vodacom is the number one carrier in South Africa, although it recently
slipped from 57% of the market to 54%, still a majority. It has almost 10m
subsct
Africa is seen as a major opportunity for mobile phone carriers as most
countries have only a limited wired phone network, and deploying a wireless
network is substantially less expensive than building a wired network from
scratch.
A report last month from the International Telecommunication Union found
mobile phone usage increasing at 65% annually, more than double the global
average. Vodacom says it is confident that 3G will be a significant growth
market in Africa in the coming years.
Vodacom is jointly owned by South African landline monopoly Telkom, the
largest shareholder, and by British carrier Vodafone.