The first installment in this series is a little heavy in tech-language but it is good for general education and awareness. I will however try to break it down as simple as possible so that every day users and followers of technology can appreciate what 4G LTE is about and what it can mean for their ICT use.

On November 11 2014, Rwanda commercially launched the new hi-speed LTE technology under the auspices of olleh Rwanda networks (oRn) on one hand as wholesaler and Mobile Network Operators (or MNOs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as retailers on the other.

The wholesale-retail model is such that oRn takes responsibility for making LTE capacity available (in wholesale volumes) for the retailers to distribute and sell to their customers. The customer relationship and ownership remain with individual retail units, so the customer will have no dealing with the wholesaler whatsoever.

Service Level Agreements are incorporated in the agreement between the wholesale-retail parties to ensure acceptable level of service quality in terms of LTE network coverage, availability, speed and capacity. To this extent, end users of the technology are covered as the retailers can assume responsibility for the LTE service quality on behalf of the wholesaler.

Following the commercial launch of LTE and indeed during the pilot phase, I had to answer questions about LTE and what it means for our Customers. The big question is what could be in 4G LTE for Rwanda?

This piece will therefore attempt to provide some education on LTE and what difference it can make. The questions that will be answered shall include the basics on LTE within the broader context of broadband positioning in Rwanda as an ICT thought leader in Africa.

What is 4G LTE? Speed, Speed, Speed!

According to www.wikipaedia.com (you may search more details on Wikipedia for free using MTN), LTE (Long Term Evolution) and commonly referred to as 4G LTE "is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals”.

The word "Data” in the definition can loosely represent all the things we do via internet medium.

Although From a Technology point of view the goal of LTE may vary, from the Customer experience point of view the essence of LTE is to provide ultra-high speed data/internet capacity.

This means LTE network by definition can deliver, upload and download high capacity content at a much faster speed than any of the existing technologies. Some of the existing technologies include WIMAX, Fibre, 3G, and 2G.

"G” stands for Generation so the various phases of high speed technology are sequenced accordingly as Second, Third and now Fourth Generation networks captured simply as 2G, 3G and 4G respectively.

Does it mean we should expect higher versions like 5G in the horizon? Your prediction is right, 5G is already being tested, with the beauty of technology moving at the pace of light!

4G LTE is all about speed, which potentially can be up to 5 times faster in download and upload speeds respectively compared to say 3G. Download speed (ordinarily referred to as Browsing speed) is the rate at which data is transferred from the internet to a user’s device whilst the Upload speed is the rate at which data is transferred from the user’s device onto the internet.

Download speeds are often set to be higher than Uploads because most users have more need to download than otherwise. It gives users the ability to download or stream videos (e.g. movies, games), audio (e.g. Music/Songs), do heavy Web browsing and social networking.

Large sizes or number of documents, files, software and applications can be shared as well. 4G LTE speed can be up to 100 megabits per second(mbps) in download and 50mbps per second in upload speed, compared with 3G speed that offer up to 42mbps Upload and 11.5mbps Download speed. Mbps is the unit of Data transfer (speed) per second of time.

The maximum speed is never guaranteed as actual browsing speed depends on the strength of the coverage availability in your area, and how many users are sharing the available bandwidth capacity at any point in time.

To use 4G LTE network in your area, you need a 4G enabled device. Devices designed solely for 3G (and by default for 2G) cannot get 4G speeds. 4G devices and Kigali coverage maps are available in MTN Service centers.

An analogy for Internet traffic and speed can be compared to normal vehicular traffic on our roads. If the highway is cleared of all vehicles or have fewer vehicles you most probably can drive at the legally allowable maximum speed.

As more and more vehicles come on the highway the average speed per vehicle goes down. The impact of such traffic will depend on the number of vehicles, their relative sizes and the social impact will include the number of people trapped in that traffic.

You can have fewer long trailer trucks on the road causing heavy traffic just as you can have many smaller vehicles causing traffic on the road. The beauty of 4G is like providing the means for those heavy duty trucks to move at equal speed like the smaller cars.

It however gets to a stage where the highway begins to experience more traffic because it is receiving more vehicles than it was originally designed to take. Ahead of that happening, planners have to do their work by expanding the road, redesigning portions of it and or creating parallel or alternative routes to eliminate the heavy traffic.

The same is true for LTE and all other technologies. When more users are on board or even few but heavy users get on board, the network speed can reduce irrespective of the technology so either more sites have to be built or existing sites have to be expanded to contain the traffic.

The good news is that you can experience the best of speed on the brand new LTE network in Kigali. Get on board, there exists more space for tens of thousands users.

The writer is the CEO of MTN Rwanda