South Africa’s Vodacom to spend $27 million to add network capacity during lockdown

South Africa’s Vodacom Group VODJ.J said on Wednesday it will spend over 500 million rand ($27.04 million) over two months to add network capacity as traffic surges across its mobile and fixed networks as people stay home during the national lockdown.

Vodacom, which competes with rival MTN Group MTNJ.J, has also applied to telecoms regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) for temporary spectrum and is waiting for its application to be evaluated, it said in a statement.

South Africa has imposed a five-week lockdown to the end of April to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

―Nasdaq