Cell C HSPA+ population coverage at 63%
Population coverage for Cell C’s HSPA+ network is at 63%, chairman and acting CEO Simon Duffy announced at a press briefing today (11 August 2011).
Duffy went on to explain that Cell C’s coverage comes from having their HSPA+ network live in 15 major cities, with 1,900 HSPA+ sites and 5,700 HSPA+ transmitters on air, supported by 3,700km of fibre optic cable.
Former CEO Lars Reichelt previously said on Twitter that Cell C had achieved over 60% population coverage.
When Cell C first launched their HSPA+ network in September 2010, Reichelt publicly set some bold coverage targets for the company. He said that Cell C wanted to reach 34% population coverage by the end of 2010, and extend this even further to 67% coverage by mid-2011.
Although not by a large margin, Cell C have missed the target slightly, saying that they currently sit at 63% population coverage.
It should be remembered that these targets were ambitious to begin with when you consider that MTN had only covered 48% of South Africans with their 3G network by 2010, and that it took Vodacom approximately 5 years to achieve 50% population coverage.
The next self-imposed milestone for Cell C is to achieve 97% population coverage by the end of 2011.
To determine whether a particular area is covered, an operator has to decide what signal level they consider high enough for that area to have adequate service.
Steve Boiles, Cell C’s executive head of network engineering, explained that for population coverage measurements Cell C uses a signal level of -105dBm, but for the coverage map on their website they use -95dBm.
The coverage map uses the more conservative measurement so that customers can be assured a good quality of service in the areas it indicates as covered, Boiles said.
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