Telkom South Africa has selected Alvarion BreezeMAX 3.5 GHZ to roll out WiMAX networks as part of an ongoing deployment project for increasing wireless broadband services on a nationwide level.

Telkom South Africa is the provider of public switched communications services in the country.

The first deployments are taking place in the highly urbanized province of Gauteng and along the coastal regions of the country.

“We are impressed with Alvarion’s achievements in the WiMAX market in general, and the successful extensive network trials of BreezeMAX in South Africa in particular. We believe that Alvarion will play an important role in the future, as we aim to increase broadband penetration throughout the country in urban and rural areas alike,” said Alphonzo Samuels, Telkom’s Executive Officer for Broadband Technology.

BreezeMAX complies with IEEE 802.16 standards and uses OFDM technology for advanced non-line-of-sight functionality. Its carrier-class design supports broadband speeds and quality of service, enabling carriers to offer triple play broadband services to thousands of subscribers via a single base station.

“We are proud to be selected by a market leading company as Telkom SA, and take an active role in their WiMAX initiative, which has just set out,” said Tzvika Friedman, president and CEO of Alvarion. “Offering reduced time to market, top quality service and a wide range of mobile WiMAX solutions; we look forward to upcoming potential deployments, as South Africa embarks on the vast opportunities of broadband services, in order to enable the citizens of Gauteng and coastal regions to benefit from fast access, triple play and more.”