Press Release: MTN Zambia has officially launched 4.5G internet trials

MTN Zambia has officially launched the 4.5G internet trials supported by Huawei Technologies. The mobile service provider showcased the trial of 4.5G, an upgrade of the 4G internet speed which is currently the fastest speed in Zambia and most of the world, at the opening of the MTN Tad hackathon competition which was held over the weekend.

MTN Zambia was the first mobile service provider to launch 4G internet on the Zambian market. Unveiling the trial, MTN Chief Marketing Consultant, Felix Kamenga, said, there has been no trial or commercial availability in Zambia for 4.5G. He said the evolution of 4G to the faster 4.5G will make watching high resolution videos and streaming without buffering possible. Mr. Kamenga said the launch of the 4.5G trials by MTN Zambia was a demonstration of innovation that would give Zambians a glimpse into the future of mobile internet.

Kamenga said MTN Zambia understood that speed was critical in internet provision for the user to do more in less time. The 4.5G trial by MTN Zambia is the first on the Zambian market.

Meanwhile, the TADHackathon closed on Sunday with the team Up-close, third year creative digital media students from Evelyn Hone college, Andrew Mwanza and Siko Siamulonga, emerging as winners of the $1,000, PlayStation 4 and 4G router with 20GB data bundle.

The team had a generic media application that would enable one to pull out information from anywhere in the world. The team was still developing the Application to ready it for the business market. The dual thought techpreneurs had a future in Zambia with a lot of ideas and support.

On the other hand Shop Zed, an online store that delivers groceries and household goods, owned by Victoria Mzumara, was the winner of the showcase category. She walked away with a Samsung Gear S2 and a 4G router with a 20GB data bundle.

Simunza Muyangana, co- founder of BongoHive and one of the coaches during the TADHack, said that the last two days was crunch time for the teams to work around something that could be turned into a business. He said the software developers require support from business and marketing minds who would help the teams grow the ideas into viable business solutions.

At the same event, TADHack Judge, Marcus Achiume- founder and CEO at Mobile Payment Solutions, said the solutions presented were bold and were ideal for different industries. He said embracing such ideas would enable businesses to achieve their goals faster and cheaply. He acknowledged that there was need to move from just software developers to deriving solutions and partnerships with already enabling organisations like MTN Zambia in order to seal the gap in analytics and project management. He emphasized the need to have industry specific ideas. Achiume said this would expand the possibility of technology solving some of the problems in communication, transport and logistics, agriculture and many other sectors.

AGRISAVE was the first runner up while COGNIFY was the second. This was the first time the TADHackathon was being held in Zambia hosted by MTN Zambia in collaboration with BongoHive. The event was sponsored by Aviat, ATS, and Huawei Technologies. The TADHack which was started in 2013 as a way of providing a platform for telecommunication application developers is held in different countries with the aim of bringing together application developers, non-coders and business houses interested in using telecommunication applications and services in their business processes. TADHack global is the largest telecom focused hackathon in the world.