{"id":548805,"date":"2006-05-16T07:57:41","date_gmt":"2006-05-16T07:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548805-cellular-subscriber-numbers-could-do-with-some-auditing.html"},"modified":"2006-05-16T07:57:41","modified_gmt":"2006-05-16T07:57:41","slug":"cellular-subscriber-numbers-could-do-with-some-auditing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548805-cellular-subscriber-numbers-could-do-with-some-auditing.html","title":{"rendered":"Cellular subscriber numbers could do with some auditing"},"content":{"rendered":"

That may be the best way to describe the number of subscribers announced by cellphone companies after the end of each quarter.<\/p>\n

Yesterday MTN Group said it had notched 24 million subscribers in the 10 countries in which it provides cellphone services.<\/p>\n

Africa’s biggest cellular operator operates in South Africa, where it is number two. It said the number of its local subscribers declined by 36 000 in the latest quarter. Market leader Vodacom said last week it had signed up its 20 millionth subscriber in South Africa. <\/p>\n

At the end of December last year MTN had 10.2 million subscribers in South Africa and Cell C had 2.9 million. The bulk of these subscriber numbers are made up of prepaid customers. <\/p>\n

These figures do have to be taken with pinch of salt. Cell C, the smallest of the three cellphone operators in South Africa, admitted as much last week.<\/p>\n

MTN has also echoed similar sentiments. The managing director of MTN South Africa, Maanda Manyatshe, last week called for an independent assessor to look into the numbers to eliminate double counting of SIM cards.<\/p>\n

Cell C also said last month that the market share figures for the prepaid segment might not be reliable as the reported number of the three cellular operators in South Africa related to the number of SIM cards, not subscribers. With the current special offers, data SIMs and motor-tracking SIMs in the market, there are many subscribers with multiple SIM cards.<\/p>\n

The subscriber numbers are also exaggerated by the festive season, a period during which cellphone companies sell starter packs at a discount. Cellphone users take the opportunity to buy multiple packs in order to get cheap airtime. <\/p>\n

Comparing the price structures of similar packages, consumers find that the airtime included in the starter packs is cheaper than buying top-up airtime on existing prepaid accounts.<\/p>\n

Regarding the future of the industry, Cell C expects there would be 33.3 million subscribers by 2013, equivalent to 68 percent of the projected population by then. MTN is more optimistic, seeing 35.1 million subscribers by 2009. <\/p>\n

With so much expectation, Manyatshe said it was critical for operators to be transparent to the media, public sector and customers. <\/p>\n

The mobile calls interception law, which comes into effect in June, should help clean up the statistics a bit. The legislation requires cellphone companies to keep a register of all their subscribers within a 12-month period beginning in June.<\/p>\n

This is a huge task for operators who have to come up with "innovative" ideas to capture subscribers and also find a mechanism to educate the informal sector about the process. <\/font><\/p>\n

But it may be one of the few ways in which the subscriber numbers can be given an air of authority.. <\/p>\n

<\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s a number? A number is an opinion. It’s just hidden behind scientific-sounding methods and carries an air of authority. Some opinions carry the credibility of years of impartial study. Others don’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"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":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548805"}],"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=548805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}