Vodacom South Africa is lining up a 5G launch for this year.
The operator’s ambitions became attainable when it signed a sharing agreement for 3.5GHz spectrum with Liquid Telecom late last year. Additionally, it has signed a roaming deal with local 4G provider Rain which will facilitate its goals.
Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO, said: “Having been the first network to commercially launch 5G in Africa through Vodacom Lesotho, we expect to be able to launch 5G services in South Africa this year. This is possible thanks to a recent roaming agreement with Liquid Telecom, as 5G spectrum is largely unassigned in South Africa.”
In regards to Vodacom’s roaming agreement with Rain, Joosub added: “Looking ahead, customers can expect to experience the benefit of our revised roaming deal with Rain, which will further expand our 4G capacity in an environment where delays in assigning available spectrum will constrain capacity for all networks.”
