Airtel Uganda recently came under the spotlight for allegedly advertising country-wide 4G LTE (long term evolution) coverage which was found to not be accurate according to customers complaints received by the Uganda Communication Commission (UCC). The regulator wrote to Airtel about the queries and also published on its official blog, in what we think was a way of informing all stakeholders that their issues are being addressed by the commission.
For unknown reasons, UCC later pulled down the blog where it had written to the telco giant informing them that they had started an investigation into the matter. Airtel Uganda has come out to show how its modernizing it’s 4G LTE network using enhanced technologies.
The red carrier, says that it has currently achieved putting 4G LTE on all 100% of their sites. To counter the on going skepticism among its customers, Airtel has announced 5 the transformative wireless technologies that are bringing about efficiency in the way voice and data services are experienced across the country. These are technologies that have been used worldwide to ensure efficient fast 4G LTE networks.
1. 4×4 MIMO
This may seem a bit technical to explain, but the company has adopted 4×4 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) and claims they are the first to use it in Uganda– however, similar variants of MIMO technology has been used by other telcos like MTN and Africell in deploying their 4G networks. “MIMO” specifically refers to a practical technique for sending and receiving more than one data signal simultaneously over the same radio channel by exploiting multipath propagation. However 4 x 4 MIMO is essentially 4 streams of data for transmission and receiving pathways which means MIMO has greatly enhanced 4G LTE speeds of data.
2. Carrier Aggregation
Airtel is also using Carrier Aggregation to enhance it’s 4G-LTE network. This technology that combines two or more carriers signals into one data channel to enhance the data capacity. A carrier is the frequency spectrum each telecom company acquires from the regulator UCC, and that’s why we always refer to telecom companies are carriers at Techjaja in most of our articles.
Carrier Aggregation has been used for spectrum efficiency and speed so users can experience incredibly faster download and upload speeds. This means users can watch high resolution videos that can stream with minimum buffering.
3. Spectrum Refarming
In the future, there will be no more 2G and all calls and data will be handled by 3G, 4G or 5G networks, so why not use the current 2G spectrum for 4G? This is what they call spectrum refarming. The red network has gone through a spectrum re-farming exercise which means they have recovered part of spectrum from one technology for use by another technology without impacting the services of the donor technology.
Internationally, refarming is a commonly used process to govern the repurposing of spectrum band to more efficient technologies and or new services. This means they can use spectrum meant for 2G or 3G for 4G LTE this is done depending on the resources. This has ensured an optimized mix to serve both voice quality and improve data speeds.
4. Fiber Expansion
A good 4G LTE network must have Fiber connection at each site. This may not be possible for up country sited deep in the villages for most networks. Fiber is a transmission technology that uses light to transmit data. This technology provides data speeds in excess of 1Gbps which improves speed and latency of data services. Currently Airtel Uganda has more than 50% of Kampala sites are on fiber.
5. 4G SIM Card
This is not a network based technology but in order to enjoy faster downloads, the company has invited customers to upgrade to a 4G SIM card and enabled device that is a forward step to tapping into the 4G fast speeds experience. You can check out all smartphones sold at Airtel Shops here, to see which ones are 4G capable. Alongside network modernization, Airtel says it will drive affordability of mobile data currently with a GB less than USD 1.
Based on the complaints sent to UCC, it seems some Airtel clients are still yearning for some 4G coverage or even faster mobile internet speeds that the carrier currently offers. We still await for the out come of UCC’s investigations and we hope Airtel will enforce and implement the above 5 points in order to have a great 4G LTE experience for their customers.
