Telecel plans Zimbabwe investment

Telecel Zimbabwe announced it will invest USD70 million this year to expand and upgrade its GSM and fledgling 3G mobile networks, including a fiber-optic backbone infrastructure project, TeleGeography CommsUpdate reported.

Telecel will roll out 300 new base stations and enhance its 3G coverage and capacity in all main cities of Zimbabwe.

Last year Telecel deployed 127 new 2G and 3G base stations. The company announced it will be upgrade switching capacity to cope with an expected rise in subscribers from the 1.24 million it reported in September to more than 2.5 million by the end of 2012.

Zimbabwean regulator POTRAZ reported that Telecel’s user base had surpassed 1.8 million at the end of 2011, although the watchdog’s figures have tended to differ from those reported by the cellco, which indicated it has roughly 1.5 million active customers.