Vodacom network ups fight for clients

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa's largest mobile phone operator Vodacom debuts on Tuesday its high-speed fibre network aimed at business customers, laying down a potent challenge to its former parent Telkom.

Vodacom, which is majority owned by Britain's Vodafone, said its Vodacom Business unit would provide fixed-line services such as video-conferencing to corporate clients in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.

Telkom, which dominates provision of fixed-line services to corporate users, has suffered profit declines from its core business after selling its stake in Vodacom, its main earnings driver last year.

Vodacom would also compete with Africa's biggest mobile operator MTN and unlisted Neotel, majority-owned by India's Tata Group, for corporate users in the four metropolitan areas.

The network, known as Metro E, would connect businesses to a wide area network such as the Internet, and enable large companies to use the network to connect branch offices to mission-critical applications, as well as linking together offices in different metropolitan areas.

The network offers speeds between 2 megabytes per second and 1 gigabyte per second.

MTN Network Solutions is already providing a broad range of communication offerings, beyond its mobile services, after acquiring the South African unit of US-based Verizon Communications.

MTN had also invested millions of rand in building its own fibre metropolitan network.