December 12, 2012 - Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) announced that it has helped MTN South Africa to launch a commercial LTE network which will be rolled out across the country. Along with its RBS 6000 family of base stations, Ericsson is supplying the Evolved Packet Core, Home Subscriber Server (HSS) for user data management, Operating Support Systems (OSS), project management and services.

This is the first commercial LTE network built by Ericsson in Africa. The launch comes after the pilot network has been running for more than a year.

Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next generation of mobile communication technology, enables the fast transfer of huge amounts of data in an efficient and cost-effective manner, optimizing the use of spectrum. The increased capacity and lower latency will allow subscribers effortless access to faster web browsing, online gaming, social media and video.

Lambo Kanagaratnam, MTN South Africa Chief Technology Officer, said: "MTN's first LTE network will enable our South African customers an experience that is more efficient and seamless."

Lars Lindén, head of Region Sub-Saharan Africa, Ericsson, said: "This will open countless opportunities and will change the way people work, live and play. The commercial deployment of LTE will help users experience and interact in a better, more efficient way." 

Ericsson is the world leader in LTE and today has more than 90 commercial LTE contracts on six continents, of which over 50 networks have already gone live. More than 455 million people worldwide have LTE coverage, of which 305 million are covered by LTE networks supplied by Ericsson (July 2012).