Vodacom Group says it continues
to grow its pan-African customer base of 196.2 million people through finding
innovative ways to keep customers connected via land, sky and sea.
According to the Chief
Technology Officer at Vodacom Group, Dejan Kastelic Vodacom aims to accelerate
connectivity in Africa and promote digital inclusion through its diverse
connectivity projects, leveraging the latest technological developments to
bring improved connectivity to the continent.
On land, Vodacom's Rural
Coverage Acceleration Programme intends to provide even the most remote areas
with reliable and fast network coverage. To date, Vodacom Group has rolled out
close to 9,000 4G sites across its markets. In the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique, over 1 300 deep rural low-cost sites have been
deployed. The programme continues to develop new ways of reducing the cost of
deploying and operating rural network sites to achieve further expansion and
connect even more people for a better future.
"Connectivity plays
a significant role in allowing those in remote areas access to transformative
digital services, such as educational and financial opportunities. By
increasing connectivity in underserved areas, we can help to empower
communities and ensure they can participate meaningfully in the digital
economy," adds Kastelic.
Already digital
financial services platforms are having a marked impact on the lives of their
users. Vodacom Group, including Safaricom, has 73.5 million financial services
customers across eight markets, and mobile money platforms, such as M-Pesa and
VodaPay continue to change lives with users, many of whom had never been part
of the formal financial system and now have access to financial services. There
is no doubt that the launch of M-Pesa in Ethiopia will promote digital and
financial inclusion in the country.
Supporting this ambition
to connect the unconnected are satellite partnerships. Vodacom is continuing to
work with Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile to develop the first space-based mobile
network to connect directly to consumer 4G and 5G smartphones without specialised
hardware. After a trial project, earlier this year in partnership Safaricom in
Kenya, AST SpaceMobile is scaling its satellite deployments in partnership with
Vodacom to provide communications to 4G devices in Africa and beyond.
In September, Vodacom
announced that it plans to use Project Kuiper's low Earth orbit (LEO)
communications initiative to provide coverage in rural areas where connectivity
is challenging and costly through traditional terrestrial communications
solutions. More specifically, Vodacom, in collaboration with Vodafone and
Amazon, plans to use Project Kuiper's network to extend the reach of 4G and 5G
services to more customers in Africa.
"Satellite
connectivity projects have the potential to enhance our rural connectivity
plans as well as improve the stability and speed of internet services in urban
areas," says Kastelic. "Our long-term goal is to investigate the
applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) over non-terrestrial networks,
which can serve as an industry 4.0 catalyst."
Going from the skies to
the sea, Vodacom Group is part of the consortium that owns the 2Africa subsea
cable, the largest fibre-optic cable project in the world, facilitating
communications for over 3 billion people. The 45 000km-long cable, which
interconnects Europe, Africa and Asia, provides direct international
connectivity to data centres, enterprises, and wholesale customers through a
180 Tbps line. As part of its commitment to boosting digital inclusion in
Africa, Vodacom is the designated landing partner for the cable at sites in
Gqeberha in South Africa, as well as in Maputo and Nacala in Mozambique.
In the digital world,
Vodacom has made strides in scaling its cloud offering. Forming partnerships
with different hyper scalers, the technology provider has achieved a 33%
increase in applications that are cloud-native and established the Cloud Centre
of Excellence with Amazon Web Services to improve digital skills on the
continent, with the additional mandate of reducing delivery time and cost.
"Cloud is playing
an integral role in the digitalisation of businesses across the globe. Combined
with our involvement in the 2Africa cable project, and other strategic
partnerships, we hope to continue our journey of being at the forefront of
accelerating digitalisation across the continent and play our role in closing
the digital divide through improved access to connectivity," concludes Kastelic.
By: Nana Appiah Acquaye