New spectrum - What you can expect from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Rain

[Jamie McKane]

New spectrum - What you can expect from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Rain

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has issued temporary spectrum to Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Rain, and Liquid Telecom.

This spectrum will be released for the duration of the national state of disaster with the aim of easing network congestion.

 

[Supersoaker]

Well I don't expect anything to change with Rain since Vodacom seems to be piggybacking the **** out of their network.

 

[morbill]

Cell C ?

 

[Swa]

tl;dr: alleviate network congestion

So nothing really

 

[Gazg]

"And lower the cost of access to consumers"..........right, watch this space for the next excuse.

 

[WalkWithMe]

Well I don't expect anything to change with Rain since Vodacom seems to be piggybacking the **** out of their network.

If Vodacom have their own spectrum, they can rely less on Rain. Also hopefully the licence will not allow Rain to allow roaming on this spectrum.

 

[Swa]

If Vodacom have their own spectrum, they can rely less on Rain. Also hopefully the licence will not allow Rain to allow roaming on this spectrum.

It's not the amount of spectrum but the amount of towers.

 

[WalkWithMe]

"And lower the cost of access to consumers"..........right, watch this space for the next excuse.

This is emergency temporary spectrum not permanent. We may see bundle specials. The equipment cost and long term auction cost (billions of Rands) will be paid by us the consumer. This is not only about price but stability and performance. I am hopefully though there will be a price discount.

 

[system32]

What happened to Cell-C?

 

[Sarg3_ZN]

Well now that they have the spectrum, fate has dealt them an exchange rate that has tanked, so they will be able to complain about the insane USD cost of data that they are purchasing from the under sea cable companies and are unable to absorb all those costs.

Edit : Talking about Vodacom and MTN

 

[DXL]

All we want for PREPAID users is for Data to be R10 and less Depending on Bundle size a Gigabyte valid for 31 Days.

 

[Napalm2880]

This whole article sounds like typical marketing fluffyness that you see on most organisations websites where they advertise services but at the end of the day you find they can only do 1/10th of what they say. I'd be interested to hear what the actual technicians and engineers have to say because as far as I'm concerned this temporary spectrum allocation is a complete waste of time for everyone.

There is no ways in hell any of our mobile operators will be purchasing specialized equipment to cover a portion of the spectrum that is only temporarily available - maybe another 2 weeks? In the case where their equipment support it, I'd imagine there are quite a few software configuration changes which requires change management, testing etc. etc. by which time our gov in their infinite wisdom has revoked permission to use the new frequencies.

 

[chakniks]

This whole article sounds like typical marketing fluffyness that you see on most organisations websites where they advertise services but at the end of the day you find they can only do 1/10th of what they say. I'd be interested to hear what the actual technicians and engineers have to say because as far as I'm concerned this temporary spectrum allocation is a complete waste of time for everyone.

There is no ways in hell any of our mobile operators will be purchasing specialized equipment to cover a portion of the spectrum that is only temporarily available - maybe another 2 weeks? In the case where their equipment support it, I'd imagine there are quite a few software configuration changes which requires change management, testing etc. etc. by which time our gov in their infinite wisdom has revoked permission to use the new frequencies.

They will have the spectrum till end of November. But it's still a bit of a big ask in terms of purchasing new infrastructure. Hopefully ICASA plans to give the operators the same frequency bands on a permanent basis later in the year, otherwise it could be really a messed up situation

 

[Misanthrope]

If Vodacom have their own spectrum, they can rely less on Rain. Also hopefully the licence will not allow Rain to allow roaming on this spectrum.

Vodacom's infrastructure is not geared for the 2600 band but rain's is. I don't know who's going to benefit from this but peronally I don't think it is rain clients.

 

[PHeX]

Will mobile operators be offering 5G during this period since "their networks are 5G ready"?

 

[MegaTesla]

I'm not getting anything on 2600 on Rain. Is it too soon?

Anyone else?

 

[chakniks]

I'm not getting anything on 2600 on Rain. Is it too soon?

Anyone else?

Too soon. They have not deployed the additional spectrum yet

 

[Gtx Gaming]

I'm not getting anything on 2600 on Rain. Is it too soon?

Anyone else?

Are you on 1800mhz band? they would need new equipment for 2600mhz band on the tower I think.

 

[MegaTesla]

Yes I'm on 1800MHz.

I see. So do they have towers with 1800MHz and tower with 2600MHz? So not the same hardware on all the Rain towers?

 

[cavedog]

But they have been having 1 x 20MHz on 2600MHz since the start.