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19 May 2015

Telkom announces expansion of LTE Advanced network

Telkom today announced it has expanded its LTE Advanced (LTE-A) network to an additional 22 suburbs across South Africa. This expansion adds to what is already the largest LTE-A network in the country. LTE-A is the next evolution of high-speed wireless broadband and can theoretically support peak speeds of up to 1Gbps.
 
The LTE-A expansion will cover areas in greater Johannesburg, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Tshwane. The size of Telkom’s LTE-A network is unrivalled anywhere in Africa. Additionally, Telkom is one of the earliest adopters of the LTE-A technology in the world and the first in South Africa.
 
“We have received positive feedback from our customers experiencing superfast speeds on Telkom’s LTE-A network,” said Attila Vitai, managing director of Telkom Mobile and Consumer. “Expanding our network is key to our mission of delivering world-class products and services to our customers.”
 
“Telkom is on a journey to deliver super-fast broadband on both wireless and fixed lines to cater for the specific needs and requirements of our customers. We have geared ourselves up to be as responsive as possible to what our customers want, be it VDSL, Fibre or LTE-A,” said Vitai.
 
Telkom’s LTE-A speeds are comparable to speeds available over a fibre network and offer a compelling alternative to fixed line broadband for high speed connectivity. LTE-A is a super-fast wireless broadband solution that does not require a wire-connection to go into your home. It is completely plug and play. LTE-A turns your home into a fully connected Wi-Fi hotspot allowing for up to 64 wireless devices to be connected simultaneously.
 
Telkom’s LTE-A technology runs on the 2.3GHz spectrum, which is unique to Telkom. The spectrum allows Telkom to offer efficient, high quality and stable LTE-A technology to customers. Telkom’s LTE-A wireless broadband service current network configuration supports downlink speeds of up to 150Mbps.
 
Telkom started its LTE-A journey in September when it upgraded its network and was able to demonstrate peak speeds of over 380 Mbps at the MyBroadband Conference in October 2014.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

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Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.