Maputo, Mozambique, 29 Sept – Vodacom Moçambique, Mozambique’s second mobile telephony company, is investing over US$7 million in construction of its own fibre optic network linking the cities of Maputo and Matola and Maputo and Beira.

José de Sousa, the chief executive of the Vodacom subsidiary in South Africa, an arm of the world leader Vodafone, told Mozambican news agency AIM that the conclusion of this infrastructure would make it possible to launch the operator’s Third Generation (3G) service in November.

“We were due to launch the Third Generation services last August, but we didn’t do it because the TDM (Telecomunicações de Moçambique) network does not work correctly. Thus we preferred to build our own fibre optics nto launch a quality product,” said Sousa.

The company is currently building fibre optics to link the cities of Maputo and Beira, the provincial capital of Sofala, at an investment of US$5.8 million.

It recently invested around US$2 million in construction of fibre optics linking the neighbouring cities of Maputo and Matola.

Vodacom Moçambique also plans to link other Mozambican cities such as Beira and Chimoio, Chimoio and Tete and Nampula to Pemba.

Vodacom says it currently has a 44 percent share of the mobile telephony market in Mozambique, which is led by state company Moçambique Celular, MCel. (macauhub)