The government has instructed the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to enable the temporary licensing of all available spectrum bands.<\/p>\n
Telecoms operators have seen an increase in traffic on their networks after people started to work from home amidst the coronavirus outbreak in South Africa.<\/p>\n
A recent Delta Partners report said some mobile operators have seen a 40% increase in voice traffic and a 25% increase in data traffic.<\/p>\n
These increased traffic volumes required network operators to increase network capacity and manage traffic loads to ensure a good customer experience.<\/p>\n
Vodacom spokesperson Byron Kennedy told MyBroadband they are engaging with ICASA to gain access to spectrum on a temporary basis as well as quicker access to sites.<\/p>\n
Vodacom has also taken a decision to significantly ramp up investment spend in the short term to manage network congestion.<\/p>\n
Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has now published new directives to fast-track the temporary licensing of high-demand spectrum.<\/p>\n
This additional spectrum can be rolled out out across a network very quickly and is an easy and affordable way for mobile networks to increase capacity.<\/p>\n
Rain CEO Willem Roos said they have had constructive engagements with the government on a daily basis regarding network capacity and the licensing of additional spectrum.<\/p>\n
He said they are eagerly awaiting the moment that temporary spectrum is made available to mobile operators.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is absolutely crucial for us to get access to additional spectrum to reduce the cost of providing data together with having the capacity,\u201d said Roos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is one of the few levers we can pull relatively quickly. Should we get extra spectrum we can deploy it on existing networks without engaging in big infrastructure builds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterally from behind our computers in our data centres we can deploy that spectrum and make more capacity available.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that some of the additional spectrum will require infrastructure builds, but will still be very valuable to the industry.<\/p>\n