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South Africans craving for broadband

South African operator MTN is to deploy mobile-broadband services over a WCDMA network from Ericsson. This will give many South Africans their first taste of the internet and be welcomed by bandwidth-constrained local enterprises.

March 15, 2005

MTN promises to roll out mobile-broadband services in the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London before July 2005. Ericsson Africa's David Clayphan says MTN has chosen to steer clear of referring to this new offering as 3G, choosing instead the term mobile broadband. "We don't talk about 3G in South Africa," says Clayphan. "Instead we call it mobile broadband, as this says something to a lot of people."

MTN's mobile-broadband offering will actually provide many South Africans with their first and foremost means of accessing the internet. This is because while only about 1.5 million of the country's 42 million citizens currently have access to the fixed internet, some 19 million already own mobile phones. However, handsets remain expensive for the average South African consumer, which is why MTN is pushing vendors to supply one that could sell for between $ 20 and $ 25 – the price at which it is expected massive uptake would take place.

 

In addition to supplying the new network, Ericsson will be supporting MTN's mobile-broadband offering by providing the South African company with access to a range of "best-of-breed" 3G mobile applications. Much of MTN's choice of services is likely to be influenced by what it has learnt about consumer preferences through its MTNLoaded portal, for which Ericsson aggregates, manages and implements a portion of the content. "The local market continues to react positively to MTN Loaded. Now it's a matter of continuing to launch new applications that keep it alive and exciting," Clayphan says.

 

South Africa's bandwidth-constrained enterprise sector will also welcome the deployment of 3G services. In addition to enhancing services such as remote traffic and security monitoring via camera, the new 3G networks will bring increased mobility to the South African workforce. Against this background, MTN and Ericsson are looking at which solutions will be suitable for local companies. Much of the focus has been on products such as Ericsson Mobile Organizer and its push e-mail function, which synchronizes users' mailboxes and allows them to read e-mails and attachments on their handsets while on the move.

 

Read more about MTN and MTNLoaded here: http://www.mtn.co.za/

 

For information on how to contact Ericsson South Africa: http://www.ericsson.com/about/worldwide/southafrica.shtml

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