Paratus offers faster internet while preserving historical landmark
With the ever-evolving technological realm and upgrades in internet speeds, Paratus Telecom together with its subsidiary Canocopy, this week unveiled a new look Long-Term Evolution (LTE) tower at one of Windhoek’s oldest landmarks, the Old Power Station.
An LTE network generally sees data speeds that are up to 10 times faster than the current 3G network.
In April 2016 Paratus Telecom launched its 4G mobile data service across 33 base station sites in Windhoek and with the deployment of the LTE mobile data service, Paratus added another facet of its service towards its growing customer base.
Paratus Managing Director, John D’Alton said that their teams spent many hours contemplating the upgrade options, not only from the structural side of the tower to erect the LTE equipment, but also the visual side to retain the tower as a historic landmark in the capital city.
“The tower not only serves to speed up communication services for the operator but also gives a new look to the Old Power Station which was build in 1948,” he added. Now the tower is emblazened with the distinctive Paratus name on the upper half and Ricoh, the brand distributed by Canocopy on the lower half.
Andrew Hall, Operations Executive at Paratus said, when the firm initially started negotiating the site with the current owner early in 2015, they knew that the tower required a lot of attention.
“Not only is the site integral to our LTE expansion plans, but it is reminiscent of an era gone by, a landmark that needs to be elevated as a historical relevant site in Windhoek,”Hall added.
Currently, the Old Power Station is home to several small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. In its heydays, the Old Power Station provided 22.5 Megawatt of power to Windhoek before the finalisation of plans to build the Van Eck Power plant in Northern Industrial Area.
