Orange Botswana has announced the launch of LTE-A services, increasing data transfer rates on its 4G network. The upgrades are being branded 4G+ and have already rolled out in Greater Gaborone (which houses about 10 per cent of the country’s population) and Francistown, the country’s second-largest city.
LTE-A services will eventually be available in most parts of the country – both urban and rural – according to Orange, allowing customers to experience better streaming, faster downloads and quicker browsing as well as quicker sending and receiving of big files.
Alongside this promised capacity boost, Orange Botswana has also announced new or improved offers to allow customers to take even greater advantage of the 4G+ offering.
The data allowance on the All My Friends tariff (which, Oranges says, allows customers to enjoy more Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and LinkedIn as well as free on-net minutes and free SMSs) has been increased from 200MB to 500MB for all bundles – daily, weekly and monthly. Meanwhile All My Internet bundles pricing – for unrestricted access to all internet content and services – has been dropped by up to 70 percent.
The rollout is supported by a wide range of 4G and 4G+ compatible devices, which are available at Orange Botswana stores.
Orange is the second-largest of Botswana’s three operators in subscriber terms, ahead of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation but behind market leader Mascom, which is majority owned by the MTN Group of South Africa.
Botswana, whose population is around 2.25 million, has one of the highest mobile penetration rates in Africa, estimated at over 150 percent (or around 3.4 million), due to high levels of SIM ownership.