Vodacom extends its roaming deal with Rain

[Hanno Labuschagne]

Vodacom extends its roaming deal with Rain

Vodacom has concluded a deal with Rain to extend its roaming and facilities leasing agreements beyond its original agreement of 5,000 sites to virtually all Vodacom sites.

This agreement will enable Vodacom to increase access to 4G capacity at more favourable terms.

“This is an important agreement in an environment where spectrum remains a key capacity constraint for all networks,” Vodacom said.

 

[dotcat]

Hurah! Now I can switch to a less congested Vodacom tower.

 

[Impala]

When does this agreement come into effect?

 

[MirageF1]

Thank goodness I use neither Rain nor VC for data.

 

[Joseph matane]

"Vodacom has also concluded a deal with Rain to extend its roaming and facilities leasing agreements beyond its original agreement of 5,000 sites to virtually all Vodacom sites"
Does this mean Rain will opt for more than 5000 4G sites? Or it simple mean Vodacom will use Rain spectrum everywhere even in area's where Rain don't have coverage yet?

 

[Randux]

Who's roaming on who?

 

[supersunbird]

Who's roaming on who?

Ja, it's all very unclear to me too.

@Hanno Labuschagne

 

[dotcat]

Ja, it's all very unclear to me too.

@Hanno Labuschagne

From what I understand Vodacom broadcasts both the rain and vodacom signals from its towers. Then if the VC band gets congested it can offload to the rain band.

@cavedog is the expert on this...search for his posts

 

[Swa]

"Vodacom has also concluded a deal with Rain to extend its roaming and facilities leasing agreements beyond its original agreement of 5,000 sites to virtually all Vodacom sites"
Does this mean Rain will opt for more than 5000 4G sites? Or it simple mean Vodacom will use Rain spectrum everywhere even in area's where Rain don't have coverage yet?

Vodacom can't legally use Rain spectrum.

Who's roaming on who?

Vodacom installs the Rain equipment on its towers. Rain then broadcasts both the Rain and Vodacom network IDs.

 

[phly]

This will hopefully mean better Rain coverage as it has access to all of Vodacom full network. I for one i'm down for that.

 

[Swa]

This will hopefully mean better Rain coverage as it has access to all of Vodacom full network. I for one i'm down for that.

Agree. 1 tower in an area isn't enough and is one of the reasons I'm not too keen on using them. There needs to be at least 2 backups towers for each spot.

 

[Joseph matane]

When does this agreement come into effect?

It seems like it was implemented immediately because now Rain has aggressively roll out 4G network in North West Province within 2 months each day new sites goes live and now Rain is also rolling out coverage in remotely rural areas across NW

 

[cavedog]

It seems like it was implemented immediately because now Rain has aggressively roll out 4G network in North West Province within 2 months each day new sites goes live and now Rain is also rolling out coverage in remotely rural areas across NW

This is not really a victory for any Rain consumer. Vodacom is doing this just so they can double up on capacity because they don't have spectrum.

This also means those tower in most cases will just be a 2x2 mimo Band 3 (1800MHz)

 

[Joseph matane]

This is not really a victory for any Rain consumer. Vodacom is doing this just so they can double up on capacity because they don't have spectrum.

This also means those tower in most cases will just be a 2x2 mimo Band 3 (1800MHz)

I partly understand your views but if you look at it this way small towns in North West don't have high number of 4G gadgets so network performance won't be affected as in dense area's like Rustenburg and klerkdorp.
This will help Rain get more spectrum if they can afford it, ARC is BEE partner and covering rural area's meet icasa spectrum requirements
I suspect Rain is trying to lobby Icasa to recognise that Rain Mobile can offer much need competition in rural area's