Siemens And Vodacom Partner To Deliver 3G To Tanzania

2006-08-31 18:35:55 | Viewed 1726 times

East Africa has taken a momentous techno-leap with the announcement by Vodacom Tanzania that it will introduce 3G technology to the market. Based on the success of 3G implementation in South Africa, Vodacom Tanzania has chosen Siemens Communications to supply the full 3G solution. Furthermore, the competitiveness of Siemens in terms of pricing, availability of expertise and support with future roadmaps which also boasts high technological development further contributed to Vodacom’s decision.

Says Romeo Kumalo, Managing Director for Vodacom Tanzania, “ Offering the latest 3G technology to the Tanzanian population is of strategic significance to Vodacom and we are confident that Siemens Communications is the right technology partner of choice to roll-out the required infrastructure.”

Jan Mrosik, CEO of Siemens Communications in South Africa, says Vodacom is a pioneer in this respect committed on delivering high speed data connectivity to Tanzania this year.

“It is a fact that broadband access is scarce in Africa. As such, this development is of considerable importance in that it will enable businesses and consumers in Tanzania to join the world in terms of access to the services that are enabled by high speed access to the Internet,” he says.

Mrosik says Siemens won the tender to supply the enabling infrastructure owing to its proven leadership in 3G and HSDPA technology.

“We also have the delivery channels necessary to establish and support these types of networks in Africa. This will be the second 3G network that Siemens will establish in Southern Africa, and will be the first truly high-speed mobile broadband connectivity available in Tanzania,” he says.

An ‘accelerator’ for 3G, HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) enables subscribers to benefit from download speeds of up to 1.8MB/s – even faster than ADSL connectivity.

Martin Sanne, MD for Mobile Networks at Siemens Communications says, this is the first 3G implementation by Vodacom outside of South Africa, and is aimed at providing the same types of services to business users and consumers - including Internet access and mobile commerce – to the East African nation,” he says.

“Why shouldn’t the whole of Africa ultimately have 3G? It’s an economical way of bringing the Internet to users that would otherwise not have it,” continues Sanne. “This project will open up all the advantages of speed, latency, multimedia and so on to business users in Tanzania and will therefore also help to drive economic progress, both in the country and in the broader East African region.

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