Africa Mobile Networks and ip.access announce 4G/LTE deployment in Zambia

AMSTERDAM, 14th November 2019 – Leading Small Cell specialist ip.access, a Mavenir Company since September 2020, and Africa Mobile Networks (AMN), mobile network infrastructure service provider, today announce 4G/LTE Small Cell service in Zambia.  This builds on successful multicountry 3G Small Cell deployments, extending rural cellular coverage across underserved countries in Africa.

The rollout covers seven countries: Zambia – being the first to offer 4G/LTE services in addition to 3G, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria plan to commence 4G rollout in the coming months. The network design is built around the ip.access ViperTM solution, comprising nanoVirtTM 3G/4G virtualised gateways and management system together with the 3G and 4G/LTE Small Cells. The small cells are installed on a tower near the centre of a village and deliver mobile coverage to the community.  Each deployment is highly scalable and upgradable, adding capacity to meet demand as needed.

AMN builds, owns, operates and maintains mobile network infrastructure, delivering services to the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in Africa.  Their ‘mass production’ approach to mobile network base station build is on a volume rollout trajectory with the first 500 sites in place by 2020, increasing to 1,500 by 2021, all in collaboration with tier one Mobile Network Operators (MNO) across Africa.

AMN CEO Michael Darcy: ‘AMN is pleased to be working with ip.access to deliver 4G and 3G services. This is yet another positive step which delivers on our mission to build mobile network base stations serving rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa.’

ip.access CEO Richard Staveley: ‘Our deployment philosophy and product agility have been perfectly suited to the AMN Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) model, allowing the MNOs to expand their network coverage deep into rural areas.’