MTN plans to use state of disaster to source electrical engineers from other African countries

Hanno Labuschagne

Hanno Labuschagne

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MTN plans to use state of disaster to source electrical engineers from other African countries

MTN hopes the national state of disaster over Eskom will allow it to bring in electrical engineers working in other African countries to help manage its towers during load-shedding.

During the company's financial results presentation for the 2022 financial year, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said that the skills required to improve its tower uptime during load-shedding were in short supply in South Africa.
 
skills required to improve its tower uptime during load-shedding were in short supply in South Africa.
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Now I wonder why that is?! :unsure:

“We have to bring in people from Egypt and Nigeria
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That's the saddest thing I've read in a while. All the local skills have been chased away.
 
Hanno Labuschagne said:
MTN plans to use state of disaster to source electrical engineers from other African countries

MTN hopes the national state of disaster over Eskom will allow it to bring in electrical engineers working in other African countries to help manage its towers during load-shedding.

During the company's financial results presentation for the 2022 financial year, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said that the skills required to improve its tower uptime during load-shedding were in short supply in South Africa.
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Honestly I think that's a lie. For example here in the Northern Cape. From Upington and surrounding towns to Kathu and Kuruman etc. MTN has only 2 technicians servicing the whole area. Basically 2 technicians trying to keep the towers live in the whole of Northern Cape excluding Kimberley. And these MTN towers go off regularly due to small problems. They don't need qualified electricians. They just need to employ more people. We have been monitoring quite a few towers which MTN uses for the past 2 years. And it's more or less the same problems. Nothing gets resolved quickly, due to these 2 technicians have to drive all over the vast Northern Cape. MTN doesn't care to spend all their profits in increasing network stability and quality in the Northern cape. If you want answers ask Justice Molebatsi responsible for the northern cape - will send the email to the journalist
 
eagle2k said:
Honestly I think that's a lie. For example here in the Northern Cape. From Upington and surrounding towns to Kathu and Kuruman etc. MTN has only 2 technicians servicing the whole area. Basically 2 technicians trying to keep the towers live in the whole of Northern Cape excluding Kimberley. And these MTN towers go off regularly due to small problems. They don't need qualified electricians. They just need to employ more people. We have been monitoring quite a few towers which MTN uses for the past 2 years. And it's more or less the same problems. Nothing gets resolved quickly, due to these 2 technicians have to drive all over the vast Northern Cape. MTN doesn't care to spend all their profits in increasing network stability and quality in the Northern cape. If you want answers ask Justice Molebatsi responsible for the northern cape - will send the email to the journalist
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Weirdly when I travelled by road for three months at the end of 2021 MTN was the most reliable network in the NC. I had sim cards for all providers and they were far and away the best in the province generally.

Maybe subsequent higher stages of load shedding have knocked that for a six?
 
IdlePhaedrus said:
Weirdly when I travelled by road for three months at the end of 2021 MTN was the most reliable network in the NC. I had sim cards for all providers and they were far and away the best in the province generally.

Maybe subsequent higher stages of load shedding have knocked that for a six?
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That was back then 2021. Now almost no MTN tower stays online and all of Vodacoms towers does stay online.

MTN is becoming the worst provider to have in the Northern cape. Even now that Cell C is roaming on Vodacom it's better and more online. Also Telkom LTE towers where available is online more than MTN towers. And for months leading up to a year now. No one at MTN can give us answers or resolve issues.
Not only is backup power and outages the problem but Ping is also affecting the network with some towers having ping ( latency) issues of about 400 to 800ms. And again no one at MTN can or will assist
 
MTN Limpopo completely goes south with LS
 
eagle2k said:
That was back then 2021. Now almost no MTN tower stays online and all of Vodacoms towers does stay online.

MTN is becoming the worst provider to have in the Northern cape. Even now that Cell C is roaming on Vodacom it's better and more online. Also Telkom LTE towers where available is online more than MTN towers. And for months leading up to a year now. No one at MTN can give us answers or resolve issues.
Not only is backup power and outages the problem but Ping is also affecting the network with some towers having ping ( latency) issues of about 400 to 800ms. And again no one at MTN can or will assist
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Thanks. Will be doing a similar trip in a few months time and will test again.

Doesn't bother me particularly as I will be travelling with prepaid SIMs from all carriers once again and will just use whatever works best for requirement given place and time.
 
Article correction

skills required to improve its tower uptime during load-shedding while earning very low salaries were in short supply in South Africa
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Guess this means that we will not be getting Cubans in.
 
eagle2k said:
Honestly I think that's a lie. For example here in the Northern Cape. From Upington and surrounding towns to Kathu and Kuruman etc. MTN has only 2 technicians servicing the whole area. Basically 2 technicians trying to keep the towers live in the whole of Northern Cape excluding Kimberley. And these MTN towers go off regularly due to small problems. They don't need qualified electricians. They just need to employ more people. We have been monitoring quite a few towers which MTN uses for the past 2 years. And it's more or less the same problems. Nothing gets resolved quickly, due to these 2 technicians have to drive all over the vast Northern Cape. MTN doesn't care to spend all their profits in increasing network stability and quality in the Northern cape. If you want answers ask Justice Molebatsi responsible for the northern cape - will send the email to the journalis
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They make a ***-ton of money, surely they could have a Helicopter chartered on a permanent basis to serve the whole of Northern Cape? You can get technicians where they need to go much quicker? And then leverage vehicle availability through local channels. So as soon as a tower is more than 200KM away from the technicians you switch to choppering them in to the location and have ground transport standing by. Might sound like overkill but considering this is the ONLY method of communication and outside connection to the world for many people, systems, technologies etc in those areas, and that the towers are key national infrastructure..

PS - and its not far fetched, I had a 4-th cousin in Europe in a country with a lot of remote areas who worked on power lines and they would be taken by helicopter instead of driving all the way to remote locations for no other reason than "this has to be fixed ASAP". And it was not like they weren't printing money already...Cellphone towers prob make a lot more..
 
The networks are so bad with BEE that if you have something they want and you the only one with it. They have a BEE partner who will buy the product from you at an agreed rate and then mark it up x% and sell it to MTN/Vodacom. Just so they can keep the BEE thing going. ie someone getting money when they don't deserve it
 
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