South Africa gets its first 4G service

South Africa's first commercial 4G service has gone live.

The LTE service from Vodacom was launched in the city of Johannesburg on Wednesday, using around 70 base stations.   

"Vodacom was the first network in South Africa to test 4G LTE more than two years ago, and since then we've been busy upgrading base stations and our fibre-optic transmission network in preparation for today," Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub said in a statement.

The Vodafone subsidiary said it plans to roll out the 4G service to more South African cities "in the near future".

The mobile operator isn't likely to remain the country's sole 4G provider for long: fellow carrier MTN is currently piloting fourth-generation services and is expected to launch them before the end of the year. Telekom, the South African incumbent, is thought to be planning to go live with its LTE network in 2013.