MTC leapfrogs the developing world with LTE

Despite serving one of the sparsest markets in the world, Namibian operator MTC has been known for its aggressive network investment by rolling out Namibia’s first LTE network, as well as its endeavors in bridging the digital divide in the country. CEO Miguel Geraldes shares his insights in these areas.

MTC may serve as a good example for the Africa market. As a young company established in 1995, MTC is jointly owned by Namibia Post and Telecommunications Holdings (NPTH) and Portugal Telecom. The company currently covers 95% of the country’s population of nearly 2.1 million with a dual band 900/1800MHz GSM network, plus a 3G HSDPA+ network, making for a download speed of up 21.6Mbps in Namibia’s major towns, as well as LTE services (up to 100Mbps) launched in May 2012 for the capital, Windhoek.

The CEO also gives positive comments to the partnership between MTC and Huawei. “Our relationship with Huawei started in 2007 when we awarded them a new core contract, after which we decided to have a single supplier for our radio network in 2010. We grouped all suppliers together to see whose solutions can better house different technologies together, meaning GSM, UMTS, and even later, LTE. Huawei presented to us a fantastic proposal with its SingleRAN solution, and it helped us improve our services to customers. After that, we did several projects with Huawei, including the DWDM 40G fiber transmission. We are not a big operator that has a large number of engineers, and it is critical to have our partners be onsite and share their experience with us. The price is important, but so are the advanced technologies and day-to-day operation support that Huawei delivers to us. So far we are very happy with our partnership with Huawei.”