KT Corp to build Rwanda 4G network

11 Jun 2013

A year after having its offer to buy 20% of Telkom spurned by the South African government, Korea's KT Corp has agreed to pour US$140m into building a national fourth-generation (4G) mobile network in Rwanda that will serve 95% of that country's population.

The Rwandan government and KT Corp on Monday [10 June 2013] signed a shareholders' agreement to establish a joint venture company to deploy the high-speed 4G/LTE broadband network over the next three years.

"As principal shareholders, KT will bring expertise and make a staged cash injection of around $140m, while the government's equity investment in the joint venture includes assignment of its extensive (over 3,000km) national fibre-optic network assets, spectrum and a wholesale-only operator licence," the parties said in a statement.

They intend sourcing debt and vendor financing to complement their equity contributions.

"Rwanda's current mobile network operators are invited to invest in the project, and it is expected that these companies and other Internet service providers will provide retail access to 4G/LTE wireless broadband services for 12m end users (at full maturity of the market)."

The joint venture has an initial term of 25 years.

Contine reading the full story on www.techcentral.co.za.

About Duncan McLeod

Award-wining Duncan McLeod is the founder and editor of TechCentral (wwwTechCentral.co.za, @TechCentral]]), South Africa's latest technology news site offering breaking news, in-depth analysis and opinion that launched in September 2009. Before that, he was associate editor at the Financial Mail/FM. Contact Duncan on email duncan at techcentral dot co dot za and follow him on Twitter at @mcleodd.

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