Essar keen to skip 3G and invest directly in LTE

According to a report by Agence Ecofin Essar Telecom Kenya (ETK), which offers services under the ‘yu’ brand, intends to invest directly in 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and skip a 3G rollout altogether. ETK country manager Madhur Taneja has suggested that it is already too late to start investing in 3G infrastructure when the rest of the world is moving towards 4G LTE. By saving the money set aside for a 3G licence and rollout, Taneja said that cash-strapped ETK will be able to participate instead in the government-approved LTE consortium which has been planned since November 2010. He added: ‘If 3G will only be here for a short while, we would rather skip the generation and put our money were the future is’. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, ETK is the only one of Kenya’s four mobile operators that has not yet rolled out a 3G network.