Delivering enhanced broadband services to East African subscribers with Telrad solutions


Cape Town, South Africa – AfricaCom – November 16, 2016 — Telrad Networks, a global provider of TD-LTE broadband solutions, today announced that leading operator, Safaricom, selected Telrad Networks to modernize its fixed wireless broadband network infrastructure throughout Kenya. Safaricom will roll out the Telrad fixed wireless data network solution in the 3.5 GHz band, bringing enhanced connectivity to enterprise customers in Kenya.

Safaricom, the largest mobile carrier in Kenya and East Africa, first deployed a nationwide WiMAX 802.16d network in 2009. To meet growing business customers’ demand for higher throughput, the operator has committed to a fixed network technology upgrade that offers a transition path to LTE. This will modernize the enterprise network and enable data speeds that support media streaming and high-bandwidth business applications.

As part of this plan, and following rigorous field-testing, Safaricom chose Telrad due to its stand-out performance in terms of spectrum utilization, enterprise services while maintaining xDSL-like end-user services & support, Quality of Service (QoS), uplink/downlink access enhancements and overall improvements in capacity.

Leveraging Telrad’s award-winning BreezeCOMPACT base stations, dual-mode CPEs and uniquely scalable standards-based core network product, Safaricom, if they choose to, can quickly evolve selected portions of their fixed WiMAX network to TD-LTE seamlessly, via a software-only upgrade. Telrad products enable operations in dual-mode WiMAX/LTE network from the same platform, enabling continuity during the upgrade with minimal service disruptions to existing customers.

“During the trials, Telrad exceeded most of our required KPIs, giving us the performance boost we were seeking in serving Enterprises,” said Thibaud Rerolle, Chief Technology Officer, Safaricom. Trial results included increases in network capacity and some gains in overall spectrum utilization. “In addition, Telrad products enable a quick and seamless upgrade with limited service disruptions to our customer base.”

The Telrad platform is able to work across multiple network interfaces including LTE and WiMAX, offering a multi-layered communication model (Layer 2 and 3 services) that is well-suited for the needs of business enterprises and unique subscribers, such as municipalities, schools, banks and universities.

“We are proud to be Safaricom’s partner of choice for this important project,” said Ran Bukshpan, CEO of Telrad Networks. “This operator is known for its market leadership in both voice and data services and for being at the forefront of technological advances. Our commitment to innovation will help Safaricom continue to deliver world-class service to end users—now and in the future.”

About Telrad Networks
Telrad Networks is a global provider of innovative LTE broadband solutions, boasting over 300 4G deployments in 100 countries. Telrad stands at the forefront of the technology evolution of next-generation TD-LTE solutions in the sub-6 GHz market. Since 1951, the company has been a recognized pioneer in the telecom industry, facilitating the connectivity needs of millions of end-users through operators, ISPs and enterprises around the world. (telrad.com)

About Safaricom

Safaricom transforms lives.

We provide voice, data, financial services and enterprise solutions for a range of subscribers, small businesses and government, using a variety of platforms.

As the biggest communication company in East and Central Africa, Safaricom delights over 25.1 million subscribers, providing over 200,000 touch points for its customers and offering over 100 different products under its portfolio.

Listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and with annual revenues in excess of Kshs 150 Billion, Safaricom invested Kshs 32.13 billion in infrastructure this year, providing over 78% of Kenya’s population with 3G coverage and providing 2G coverage to 95% of Kenyans. Safaricom has harnessed its proprietary fibre infrastructure to build a dedicated enterprise business, which provides managed IT services to clients in the East African region.

Safaricom pioneered commercial mobile money transfer globally through M-PESA, the most successful service of its kind anywhere in the world.  Launched in March 2007, M-PESA now has over 23 million customers and over 100,000 M-PESA Agent outlets countrywide.