The companies which received more spectrum

Bradley Prior

Bradley Prior

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The companies which received more spectrum

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

Mthinte Communications, Levin Global, and Morai Solutions have also received permission to use Television Whitespaces (TVWS) spectrum in the 470MHz - 694MHz band.
 
How did they pull off all the 700MHz spectrum without completing the analogue migration?

Also isn't the 3.5GHz spectrum way less useful without a 5G network. What's the thinking behind that? I know there is technically a 3.5GHz LTE-A band, but it's not really supported on devices is it?
 
So that's this mean this particular spectrum lots can be licensed on permanent basis later this year?
For LTE it seems like spectrum is enough because Liquid Telecom and Cell C are not that important
 
Cellc gets nothing.... Lol shem they really needed anything they could have gotten.

I hope these temp allocations will see some aggressive data specials from the networks.

Telkom MTN and Vodacom has received a hell lot of spectrum damn. Telkom has now 3 x 20MHz in 2300MHz.

The lower bands is nice. Each network should just throw that whole 40MHz block on LTE if their equipment allows.

Rain did not get enough very sad though their 4G will still be slow.
 
km2 said:
How did they pull off all the 700MHz spectrum without completing the analogue migration?

Also isn't the 3.5GHz spectrum way less useful without a 5G network. What's the thinking behind that? I know there is technically a 3.5GHz LTE-A band, but it's not really supported on devices is it?
Click to expand...

Well LTE TDD Band 44 is in that Range and is supported by quite a few routers a high en smartphones that supports Band 40 and Band 41
 
quovadis said:
To all the operators who have been touting cheaper prices with more spectrum allocation let's see the impact your additional allocation will make...
Click to expand...

You stole my thunder :) Was about to ask the same question !

Shameel Joosub said he will make Internet access very affordable .............Whilst we all know from past experiences another excuse is being conjured up. Its not only about spectrum now its about getting approval for sites and battery theft and blah blah blah.

Only the learned will know what I am talking about.
 
Let's hope the networks' radio equipment can handle the frequencies allocated. Otherwise it's of no use - no network is going to roll out brand new equipment if they only have a temporary spectrum allocation.

I haven't worked in this space in a while so I'm not 100% up to date on who is using what, but if the newly allocated spectrum isn't directly adjacent to their current spectrum it implies expensive new antennas and radios...
 
Most popular router support:

Huawei B618s-22d Supports:

- 4G LTE Band 1/3/7/8/20/38 (FDD 800/900/1800/2100/2600MHz & TDD 2600MHz)
- Intra-band contiguous: CA_1C,CA_3C,CA_7C,CA_8B, CA_38C
- Inter-band: CA_1A-3A,CA_1A-20A,CA_3A-7A,CA_3A-20A,CA_7A-20A,CA_20A-38A
- DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/HSPA/UMTS：Band 1/8 2100MHz/900MHz
- EDGE/GPRS/GSM：Band 2/3/5/8 1900MHz/1800MHz/850MHz/900MHz

Huawei B618s-65d Supports:

- 4G LTE Band 1/3/5/7/8/28/40 (FDD 700/850/900/1800/2100/2600MHz & TDD 2300MHz)
- DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/HSPA/UMTS：Band 1/5/8 2100MHz/900MHz/850MHz
- EDGE/GPRS/GSM：Band 2/3/5/8 1900MHz/1800MHz/850MHz/900MHz
 
@rpm Please can we have a follow up article which queries each network on how quickly they will be able to integrate this new spectrum on their networks and how it will be allocated. For example the 700 / 800mhz spectrum which Vodacom got. Will that be allocated to 3G or 4G and will it be rolled out in the metro's?
 
Sjoe Vodacom and MTN get 160 and 140mhz respectively. That should have a major impact on rural 4G coverage and those with high end phones should see massive speeds if they implement 5/6CA with the band combinations. Poor Cell C gets nothing but I am sure they will benefit from the MTN allocation. Pity rain gets so little spectrum, from what I have read their customers are really complaining of congestion. Since they are the cheapest I would have expected them to have gotten at least double that and MTN and Voda a little less on the 2600mhz band. Now to see how long it takes to get this implemented on their respective networks...

*edit: If MTN would launch VoWiFi already they would really be sorting their customers with coverage. Cell C also might be able to free up some 3G spectrum by launching VoLTE and we might even see Vodacom launch 5G with the 3500mhz spectrum assignnent + the liquid telecom roaming lot
 
Last edited:
dotcat said:
So how soon until we see the benefit of this?
Click to expand...
This is the million dollar question.
Rain CEO said the deployment of the extra spectrum could be done from behind their computer desk in his interview (around 3:27 min mark) and some instances might require additional infrastructure to be built. I would then only assume that it means if an ISP gets spectrum in bands they are already using, they can just deploy the extra spectrum from their datacenter quickly. Additional spectrum in new bands might require new infrastructure and longer time to deploy.

But lets see how it will pan out in reality.
Also looking forward to see if any new special offers from networks will pop up because of this.
 
Samsung S10

LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 13(700), 17(700), 18(800), 19(800), 20(800), 25(1900), 26(850), 28(700), 32(1500), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500), 66(1700/2100) - Global

Samsung S20

LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 13(700), 17(700), 18(800), 19(800), 20(800), 25(1900), 26(850), 28(700), 32(1500), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500), 66(1700/2100)

Huawei H112-370
Support 4G Frequency Band: B1/3/5/7/8/18/19/20/28/32/34/38/39/40/41/42/43
- 4G Speeds: DL 1.6Gbps, UL 150Mbps(Theoretical)

So I got my hardware ready now show us the low data bundle promos let's see some speed. :giggle:

I think I'm too optimistic. I hope ICASA has put some strict conditions to these allocations :cautious:
 
quovadis said:
To all the operators who have been touting cheaper prices with more spectrum allocation let's see the impact your additional allocation will make...
Click to expand...
Eventually it will.

Will be interesting to see who takes the lead.
If you look at what Seacom did, it landed in 2009, and the knock on only really started in 2010 when MWeb took advantage of it and launched uncapped ADSL.

Since there is far more competition in the mobile landscape, we will probably see something quite a bit faster.
 
Tector said:
Sjoe Vodacom and MTN get 160 and 140mhz respectively. That should have a major impact on rural 4G coverage and those with high end phones should see massive speeds if they implement 5/6CA with the band combinations. Poor Cell C gets nothing but I am sure they will benefit from the MTN allocation. Pity rain gets so little spectrum, from what I have read their customers are really complaining of congestion. Since they are the cheapest I would have expected them to have gotten at least double that and MTN and Voda a little less on the 2600mhz band. Now to see how long it takes to get this implemented on their respective networks...

*edit: If MTN would launch VoWiFi already they would really be sorting their customers with coverage. Cell C also might be able to free up some 3G spectrum by launching VoLTE and we might even see Vodacom launch 5G with the 3500mhz spectrum assignnent + the liquid telecom roaming lot
Click to expand...

Not so simple - new radios and antenna may be needed especially in different bands to what their equipment can handle. They may target certain congested areas.
CellC is roaming on MTN and Cellc don't have money for equipment, so they probably find it cheaper just to use MTN more!
Vodacom is using a large portion of Rain's network. You may therefore find that if the spectrum Vodacom get's it may free up the need to use Rain's network. Which then gives Rain a lot more capacity - I would suspect this was ICASA thinking when doing the allocation.
 
Band 7 FDD the networks got 40MHz for Telkom and 50MHz for the rest. That is going to give some nice speed. For caparison this band will be more than two times faster as what MTN and Vodacom can currently max out on Band 3.

I'm very excited because I would imagine that carriers will not apply and get approved for spectrum they can't roll out and the fact that it's only temporary spectrum which means after November 2020 they need to switch it off all of it.

It would be pointless for them to apply for spectrum they can't roll out on their towers or that they need to spend tons of money on to roll out just to have the license revoked again in November.

They have been given a ton of spectrum.

Vodacom - 160MHz
MTN - 140MHz
Telkom - 112MHz
Rain - 30MHz
Liquid - 4MHz
Cellc - 0MHz


Vodacom and MTN got roughly 4 times what they currently own. Telkom about twice. Rain got about what they already own and well Cellc yeah meh they get zero.
 
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