{"id":300954,"date":"2019-03-31T17:57:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T15:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=300954"},"modified":"2019-03-31T17:59:16","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T15:59:16","slug":"it-is-tough-for-mobile-operators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/300954-it-is-tough-for-mobile-operators.html","title":{"rendered":"It is tough for mobile operators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile operators are under pressure, with increasing levels of capital expenditure needed to keep their networks up to date.<\/p>\n

At the same time, voice and data prices are falling.<\/p>\n

This is according to FNB Wealth and Investments\u2019 Wayne McCurrie, who added that smaller operators simply do not have the money to compete against Vodacom and MTN.<\/p>\n

McCurrie explained that the South African mobile industry is saturated and there is a race to the bottom on data charges.<\/p>\n

Add to that declining voice revenues and government interference to drive down prices, and you have a very challenging local mobile market.<\/p>\n

Increasing network investment needed<\/h3>\n

The growing demand for mobile data and rapidly evolving network technologies means that network investments are now much higher for operators than in the past.<\/p>\n

The fact that the government has not given operators more radio spectrum aggravates the situation, as more mobile sites are needed to serve subscribers\u2019 data needs.<\/p>\n

To roll out more sites is expensive and resource intensive, which in turn puts further financial pressure on operators.<\/p>\n

With 5G starting to gain momentum globally, this situation is not likely to change anytime soon.<\/p>\n

As 5G uses higher frequencies than 3G and 4G, it will require an even denser mobile network to operate optimally – which will further increase network investment pressure.<\/p>\n

With the high costs associated with building and running a modern mobile data network, it is not surprising that Cell C and Telkom are roaming instead of building towers in many areas.<\/p>\n

Rising network investments from Vodacom and MTN<\/h3>\n

The graphs below show the increasing network investments by Vodacom and MTN in recent years.<\/p>\n

\n

Vodacom<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

MTN<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Now read: South Africa\u2019s networks are ready and waiting for 5G spectrum<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The network investment demands on mobile operators are increasing, which puts pressure on their bottom line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":262641,"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":[35,42,41,24394],"class_list":["post-300954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-vodacom","tag-wayne-mccurrie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300954"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301072,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300954\/revisions\/301072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}