Major telecommunications company Cellcom has successfully connected its long-term evolution (LTE) network to the new Africa to Europe Cable (ACE), paving the way for a commercial roll-out of ultra-fast broadband on January 18.
Dr Kimmie Weeks, Cellcom’s Corporate Communications Strategist, noted the success of the trial period on January 1 when Cellcom’s subscribers experienced the power and speed of the fibre cable free of charge for 24 hours.
Prior to trial, Avishai Marziano, Chief Executive of Cellcom, said it was Liberia’s first telecoms company to connect its mobile network to the new fibre cable and would be the first to make it available to the public.
“We are delighted with this feat achieved by our organization especially at this time. Cellcom continues to prove itself as an innovative technology market leader because have again demonstrated this latest position as we go live with the ACE fiber optic cable,” Marziano said.
He added that during the trial period, Cellcom’s subscribers experienced “unparalleled and unsurpassable speeds”.
Weeks said Cellcom’s servers showed, despite the fact it is a densely populated network, subscribers recorded speeds that exceeded 150Mbps.
“The main advantage customers will feel with our 4G network, now connected to the fibre optic submarine cable, is lower latency – this means that web pages will load faster, streaming will work better and buffer faster, downloads will reach higher speeds and, in general, the browsing experience will be better and faster,” Dr Weeks explained.
