Telecom Namibia, the national ICT solutions provider has launched new unlimited high speed broadband service with speeds up to 120Mbps in certain parts of the country, providing the south western African country of 2.3 million people with amongst the highest speed residential broadband access available in the world.
The new service is branded ‘Speedlink LitePlus,’ which comes with flexible packages ranging from 15Mbps up to 120Mbps. The country’s largest communication backbone network operator also announced that its Speedlink broadband customers are in for a major upgrade as the company boosts broadband speeds by up to 2 times for free. The company first made free speed upgrades for all of its customers in May 2012 with the commissioning of the West Africa Cable System (WACS).
New Speedlink LitePlus service
Using fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband technology, the 120 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload Speedlink LitePlus service will be available from today for households and businesses at Maerua Mall in Windhoek, the Swakopmund CBD area and the Omeya Residential and Golf Estate, with plans to gradually expand the service to other towns and business districts in the country.
“This is a significant step in Namibia’s next generation broadband journey. This development will transform broadband speeds at homes as well as businesses and propel Namibia up the broadband league tables in the world,” said Isak Ç‚Ouseb, acting head of marketing at Telecom Namibia.
“Speedlink LitePLus is an Internet access game-changer. We are now at the forefront of business and residential Internet, offering customers superior speeds to access and embrace the new world of media and web innovations.”
Ç‚Ouseb said that to support the demand for high-speed connectivity and the country’s ICT vision, Telecom Namibia has invested millions in developing a solid fibre-optic infrastructure. “For over 22 years, we have backed businesses in Namibia with technology, connectivity and innovative solutions customised to business needs across industry verticals,” he added.
The new Speedlink LitePlus service will enable much more rapid downloading and uploading of high- bandwidth content such as music, online games, television programmes and movies. It is also essential for value added services like surveillance, e-governance and e-education.
FTTH trial
A 9-months user trial of FTTP broadband connectivity to homes was conducted at the Omeya Residential and Golf Estate, some 30km south of Windhoek, to test the service and ensure stability and reliability for customers.
The trial, which ran from December 2013 to 30 August 2014, involved 30 homes at the Estate – and the results showed that the service is capable of speeds of up to 120Mbps, setting a new Internet speed benchmark in the country.
Most areas in Namibia currently have fixed broadband speeds of up to 10Mbps and 4G mobile broadband of speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Free Speedlink upgrade
Telecom Namibia will upgrade the speeds of its existing Speedlink broadband customers starting today, at no additional charge. As an example, customers subscribed to 1Mbps speed will be automatically upgraded, free of charge, to 2Mbps broadband speeds. Customers subscribed to other Speedlink packages will also experience a speed boost with varying levels of speed. New Speedlink customers too will enjoy the benefits of higher speeds at lower rates.
All Speedlink customers will be upgraded to a higher speed at the same monthly charge, while others will benefit from a reduction in their monthly charge.
All existing Speedlink customers will be upgraded based on an agreed matrix. Home customers, for example, benefit from 33% link speed improvement on the entry level package and up to 100% on the higher packages. For instance, this means that business packages are upgraded from 384k to 512k representing 33%, while entry packages upgraded from 512k to 1024k represent a 100% link improvement. New and existing customers will derive savings of up to 42% from the upgrade without additional costs to them.
“In a fast-paced landscape with technology advancements, proliferation of social media and increasing number of applications, high-speed broadband connectivity is a crucial requirement for not only social networking but also for increased business productivity and profitability,” said Ç‚Ouseb.
“As the country’s largest ICT service provider, we want to help customers make the best of our broadband Internet services. The speed upgrade is our promise and commitment to make our technology work for them, allow them to do more and stand out from their peers and competition,” he said.
