Airtel completes LTE trial in Nigeria

Airtel Nigeria has completed a Long Term Evolution (LTE) trial in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria.

LTE, widely accepted as the true 4G, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on advanced network technologies with a central focus of increasing the capacity and speed using a different radio interface together with enhanced core network.

With the successful completion of the first 4G LTE trial in Lagos, Airtel says it is ready for test in the other major cities across the country including Abuja and Port Harcourt.

The company added that the Lagos trial threw up exciting results as data users could open up simultaneous HD Videos on Youtube without buffering. Download speed, under ideal conditions was 37 Megabits per Second (Mbps), while under non ideal conditions, was 32 Mbps: Upload speed was – 10.6 Mbps. Measurement under non ideal condition was done using www.Speedtest.net.

Speaking on the success of the trial, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Nigeria, Rajan Swaroop said Airtel is committed to strengthening its position as a true pioneer of innovation in the Nigerian telecommunications domain, saying this is in line with its overall corporate vision of becoming the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians.

‚”At Airtel, we pride ourselves as leaders and we are passionate about continuously creating the next innovation to empower telecoms consumers and enrich the lives of our customers across the country. In the coming weeks, we shall take this success story to other parts of the country so that Nigerians will benefit from this innovation when finally unveiled,‚” said Swaroop.

LTE is a truly global mobile phone standard for advanced mobile broadband. There is use of different frequency bands in different countries, which will mean that only multi-band phones will be able to use LTE in all countries where it is supported.

In February this year, Airtel Nigeria took a significant step to deepen its network capacity and quality when it announced the roll-out of widest 3.75G services across the 36 States in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. With the pan-Nigeria launch of 3.75G services, the widest and largest in the country, the company has improved customers’ experience with high speed mobile broadband and internet access, empowering telecoms consumers to watch live TV, download music, make video calls as well as send and receive emails using enabled devices.

* Follow Gadget on Twitter on @GadgetZA