South Africa

How is 5G getting on?

With the FCC announcing the results of its latest spectrum auction, we’re having a look at how the networks and supporting ecosystems are developing around the world.

MTN mulls Telkom move – report

MTN is looking into the possibility of acquiring a majority stake in fellow South African telco Telkom in a bid to challenge the country’s dominant provider Vodacom, a Bloomberg report has claimed.

Alcatel-Lucent, Vodacom in ultra-broadband GPON project

Alcatel-Lucent has announced it will build a gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) solution for Vodacom in South Africa. The vendor claimed the solution will enable Vodacom to expand its subscriber base, and provide ‘ultra-broadband’ for bandwidth-hungry activities such as video streaming and online gaming.

South Africa’s Vodacom to acquire fixed player Neotel

The South African mobile operator subsidiary of UK-headquartered Vodafone has announced an agreement to acquire the market’s second largest fixed communications provider, Neotel, in a cash deal worth ZAR7.0bn ($673m). Negotiations between Vodacom and Neotel were announced in September last year, when Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub pledged to pump significant investment into the merged entity should talks prove fruitful.

South African mobile reseller shuts up shop

South African mobile service reseller Nashua Mobile, which trades in subscriptions for the country’s main operators, is to close operations and sell its 750,000 users to Vodacom and MTN. The company is also looking to offload its Cell C customer base to a third party.

African MVNOs should target premium customers, says Cell C

MVNOs in Africa should focus on the premium end of the market rather than offer low-cost ‘no frills’ services, according to Bjorn Florman, chief executive, wholesale business at Cell C. The South African mobile operator is one of the relatively small number of networks in the region that has wholeheartedly opened its network to MVNOs.

African LTE operator “could happily prioritise Skype traffic”

A greenfield LTE operator that has launched this year in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda would “happily prioritise Skype traffic” at the expense of standards-based voice services if that is what the market demanded, its chief operating officer has told Telecoms.com.

Telkom South Africa writes down assets to tune of $1.2bn

South African operator Telkom has written down the value of its assets by R12bn ($1.2bn) following a review by its board. The operator said the decision to revalue it’s assets is important in enabling it to become competitive and efficient.

Google, Carlson launch white space trial in South Africa

US white space specialist Carlson Wireless has teamed up with Google to launch the first wireless broadband trial using TV white space in South Africa. The test case will focus on offering wireless connectivity to ten schools across the Cape Town area in an attempt to show that broadband can be offered over white spaces without interfering with licensed spectrum holders.

MTN taps up Ericsson for LTE network in South Africa

MTN has chosen equipment vendor Ericsson to launch its LTE network in South Africa, which following a year-long trial is now live in the Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban areas. LTE has not been deployed in the city of Cape Town at present.

MTN outlines LTE challenges

The arrival of LTE brings with it promises of simplified network architecture, lower cost per MB, higher throughput and lower latency. But deploying LTE services in Africa is not without major challenges, as MTN South Africa’s CTO Kanagaratnam Lambotharan outlined on the first day of the AfricaCom 2012 event in Cape Town.

1 2

Polls

View all

Telecoms.com is launching a Digital Seminar Series in the autumn of 2021. As a valued reader we'd like your feedback on the top three topics of interest as listed below:

Loading ... Loading ...