[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ireless Business Solutions (WBS), the holding company of iBurst and Broadlink acquired in 2015 by the Michael Jordaan- and Paul Harris-backed firm Multisource, has been rebranded as Rain.
The company, which is building an LTE-Advanced wireless broadband network using spectrum assets inherited from WBS, said it has made significant progress with the roll-out.
In a statement, Harris – who serves as Rain’s chairman – said: “We are determined to offer competition in the market to provide consumers with increased connectivity at affordable prices. The industry is undersupplied and we want to step into the breach.”
Rain has rolled out 750 LTE-A sites to date, and CEO Duncan Simpson-Craib said it is on track to roll out 2 000 by the end of the year.
“Very shortly we will be announcing details of a fixed wireless broadband service called ‘Rain to the Home’, or RttH, as a fibre or DSL alternative,” Simpson-Craib said.
“It will be delivered on what we call ‘fibre to the sky’ using our state of the art LTE-A network. In future, we will be launching a full mobile data service.”
Jordaan, who serves on Rain’s board, said the company intends to differentiate itself from rivals by using the “very latest technology” and providing “simple, easy and transparent access to data”.
“The aim is to eventually create an environment where ‘open access’ to the Internet becomes a reality in this country, with the best possible quality and speeds we can deliver, at affordable rates for all,” Jordaan said in the statement.
He said Rain also offers mobile operators and other service providers access to its network. It recently signed a cooperation agreement with Vodacom, which may be planning to offer LTE-A (also known as 4G+) services on the back of the Rain network. Vodacom and other operators haven’t been able to deploy widespread 4G+ infrastructure because they haven’t been granted access to new spectrum resources. — © 2017 NewsCentral Media
