Telkom Mobile’s 2010 plans
Over the last few years Telkom has increasingly focused on its mobile strategy, and after selling its stake in Vodacom last year a mobile play is now core to the company’s future plans.
Telkom South Africa MD Pinky Moholi explains that Telkom is well positioned to enter the local cellular market because of its extensive network, skilled workers within the company and its established distribution channels.
Unbeknownst to many consumers Telkom are already offering numerous cellular services, including data packages and voice contracts. Moholi however points out that these offerings are mainly aimed at consumers in areas of high copper theft and therefore function as a copper replacement service.
Take-up of Telkom’s mobile products has been fair: At the end of March 2010 Telkom had 16,299 W-CDMA subscribers, an increase of 210.3% from the 5,253 subscribers reported at March 2009.
Telkom’s ‘true’ mobile launch will however only happen later this year, and Moholi said that customers can expect very competitive prices and overall value from them. “We will give better value for money in both the mobile voice and data space,” Moholi told MyBroadband.
Network rollout and roaming
Telkom has recently announced that it has signed a roaming agreement with MTN which means that Telkom Mobile subscribers will roam on the MTN network in areas where they do not have coverage.
Telkom CEO Reuben September said last month that Telkom Mobile will launch with 2000 base stations, but Moholi clarified this statement, explaining that the launch will take place in 2010 but the 2000 base station rollout will only be completed by March 2011 (hence the end of their financial year).
Moholi also confirmed that Telkom will apply for 2.6 GHz spectrum which will be of value in rolling out an LTE network. Telkom has confirmed that LTE is part of their future plans, and access to 2.6 GHz spectrum will be of great value to all the mobile players.
Consumers can expect prepaid, postpaid and ‘blended’ cellular offerings from Telkom Mobile.
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