He said data price cuts could be significant if operators had access to more spectrum – the\u00a0capacity wireless networks need to connect mobile devices to towers.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it is not possible to assign operators any available frequencies to use for their mobile networks, as devices are designed to work within certain bands.<\/p>\n
There is suitable spectrum trapped in the 800MHz band, waiting for South Africa\u2019s migration to digital TV to be completed – which has dragged on for years.<\/p>\n
Spectrum in the 2,600MHz band is also suitable for mobile networks and it has been lying dormant for years.<\/p>\n
The government appears to have decided to delay the allocation of 2,600MHz spectrum until the digital TV migration is completed, and it will be assigned along with the 800MHz band.<\/p>\n
With this spectrum, Motsa said MTN could cut the price of a 1GB prepaid data bundle\u00a0to R50<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and cut its out-of-bundle rate to 29c per megabyte.<\/p>\n \u201cSpectrum is oxygen for networks. Spectrum reduces prices,\u201d said Motsa.<\/p>\n He argued that South African operators are among the most spectrum-starved in the world, illustrating his point with the graph below.<\/p>\n Without spectrum, mobile networks have been forced to build more towers rather than add capacity to existing sites – a process they call densification.<\/p>\n To illustrate the investment required to expand their network to meet demand, Motsa showed how MTN\u2019s capital expenditure has grown in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cThese numbers are so sky high because we don\u2019t have spectrum,\u201d said Motsa.<\/p>\n He warned that it is not sustainable to keep investing such large sums of money into infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t keep on pumping this amount of money, this increases prices for the poor.”<\/p>\n The government must release spectrum to mobile operators, said MTN SA CEO Godfrey Motsa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":230585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35061,35,42],"class_list":["post-235014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-godfrey-motsa","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235102,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235014\/revisions\/235102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Spectrum\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Spectrum-640x323.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNetwork capacity<\/h3>\n
![\"Spectrum\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Capex-640x298.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Network\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Network-640x269.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: Cellphone network quality will suffer in South Africa without more spectrum<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"