MTN grows 21 Mbps HSPA+ network
MTN South Africa today announced that it has invested hundreds of millions of Rands in its network to ensure that its customers and World Cup visitors enjoy quality mobile data and voice services.
Says Sameer Dave, chief technology officer of MTN SA: “In addition to the upgrades to, and investment in the network infrastructure around the country, we have also been involved in the installation of millions of Rands worth of equipment and the upgrade of systems in the ten World Cup stadia.”
MTN currently carries around 220 TB of data traffic on its network, and it is expected that this figure will grow to between 250 TB and 260 TB during the World Cup. Dave is confident that the MTN network will be able to handle the increased load with ease.
South Africans also don’t have to be concerned that the World Cup will influence their service quality. “We have ring-fenced the capacity according to FIFA requirements, and will ensure it is ‘business as usual’ for the rest of South Africans going about their normal daily lives,” explains Dave.
MTN Fibre and broadband networks
Good news is that the World Cup network investment, which runs into hundreds of millions of Rands, will not go to waste after the event is finished. Dave explained that equipment which is not needed at the stadiums after the FIFA World Cup will be redeployed to strengthen its current South African network.
MTN has already lit up 220 km of fibre in the Gauteng area, and according to Dave good progress is being made on the company’s national fibre network which is built in partnership with Neotel and Vodacom.
When it comes to MTN’s broadband network Dave said that they currently have 120 live 21 Mbps HSPA+ sites, all with adequate backhaul capacity to cater for the higher speed air interface. The company also has in excess of 2,000 3G/HSDPA sites of which 1,300 are 7.2 Mbps and 14.4 Mbps enabled.
MTN will continue to invest heavily in its network in 2010, with a planned R4.1-billion network spend in 2010.
This investment is needed to cope with the continued traffic growth. Dave said that they have experienced a 75% year on year data growth in 2009, and expect the same growth in 2010.
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