Vodacom Group and Orange, France’s largest cellular telecommunications operator, plan to work collectively to deploy solar-powered base stations in one among Africa’s most underdeveloped international locations.
In a joint assertion on Tuesday, the telecoms teams stated they’d “joined fingers” to kind a rural “towerco” to supply cellular providers within the huge rural Democratic Republic of Congo, the most important nation in sub-Saharan Africa – it’s almost twice the scale of South Africa, and 70% of it’s coated in tropical rainforest.
“By the partnership, the businesses will collaborate to construct, personal and function solar-powered cellular base stations in underserved areas of the DRC. The initiative will lengthen community protection and allow entry to telecoms and cellular monetary providers to as much as 19 million individuals in much less densely populated rural communities,” the businesses stated.
“Deploying and working networks, significantly in deep rural areas, continues to be a major problem within the DRC. To bridge the digital divide and increase community protection in underserved communities, the businesses have pledged collectively to assemble as much as 2 000 new solar-powered base stations over six years, utilizing 2G and 4G applied sciences,” they added.
The businesses have already agreed to an preliminary roll-out of a thousand excessive websites, which can be adopted by a thousand extra. The completion of the venture is topic to the approval of administrative, regulatory and competitors authorities.
Anchor tenants
“With the primary base station anticipated to start out working in 2025, Orange and Vodacom will probably be sharing energetic and passive tools owned by the three way partnership as anchor tenants for an preliminary time period of 20 years. The three way partnership will provide its passive infrastructure to any cellular community operator wherever technically possible to extend utilization and promote a wider vary of choices for the inhabitants.”
Learn: DRC will get its largest information centre but
Cellular web penetration within the DRC is simply 32.3% of the inhabitants. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
