JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Vodacom Congo announced that it has built an 88-base station GSM mobile cellular network in Africa’s fourth-largest country in less than three months.
The network is composed of satellite links connecting cities more than 1,600 kilometers apart in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country of 2.3 million square kilometers and a population of around 60 million.
“Although the DRC has one of the lowest GDPs (gross domestic products) on the continent, Vodacom’s investment of about US$94 million has already brought coverage to the main centers of Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, which is on par with the quality of service enjoyed by GSM customers worldwide, said Andrew Mthembu, chairman and deputy chief executive officer (CEO) of Vodacom.
It is estimated that there are only 100,000 landline phones in the entire country to serve a population of some 60 million.
Vodacom Congo is the newest subsidiary of the Vodacom Group based in South Africa. Its establishment follows the signing of a joint venture agreement between Congolese Wireless Networks (CWN) and Vodacom International Holdings in the last quarter of 2001.
Commercial switch-on of Vodacom’s DRC network took place on 1 May, after some 12,000 former CWN customers exchanged their existing subscriber identity module (SIM) cards for new Vodacom Congo SIM cards.
The cutover to the new network presented a logistical challenge to local DRC staff and South African secondees. The SIM swap operation saw about 28,000 Vodacom SIM cards issued free to former CWN and new customers queuing at Kinshasha’s Grand Hotel during a four-day period. The other SIM swap operation took place at Lubumbashi and accounted for the remainder of the SIM cards issued.
“Our success in rolling out the Congo network is a result of our partnership with Alcatel, who have supplied us with not only the equipment and infrastructure, but also with their expertise and resources,” said Mthembu, adding that the contract with Alcatel was worth US$55 million.
Mthembu said the network already has more than 50,000 customers after just three weeks of commercial operations and expects to have more than 200,000 by March 2003.
