In a strategic announcement made on Monday, MTN Uganda said that it intends deploying a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network in the country this year; with the move to make the service provider the leader in offering high-speed LTE technology in the East African region.

Disclosing its plans to offer a commercial LTE service - which is commonly called the 4G service - to its subscribers in 2013, MTN Uganda said its network is currently being upgraded to offer 4G speeds of up to 100Mbps. Though the operator refrained from revealing a specific launch date for LTE services in Uganda, it did say that the technology will be deployed "in the coming months."

According to the MTN Uganda announcement, the roll out of the commercial LTE service will be part of a $70million investment in the country during this year. In 2012, a total amount of $80million was spent by the service provider - which is a subsidiary of South Africa's MTN Group - on the expansion of its network infrastructure as well as on the launch of new products.

The MTN Uganda plans for deploying LTE network in the country comes after Smile Telecommunications announced a small-scale launch, last year, of LTE services in Uganda and Tanzania.

Terming LTE as the latest yardstick for ascertaining the technological development in a country, MTN Uganda CEO Mazen Mroué said in a late last week statement: "MTN remains committed to [the] development of the ICT sector and the Ugandan economy."