{"id":60659,"date":"2012-09-29T15:43:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T13:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=60659"},"modified":"2012-09-29T15:47:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T13:47:02","slug":"mtn-3g-coverage-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/60659-mtn-3g-coverage-update.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN 3G coverage update"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN<\/a> announced during a press briefing held at its headquarters in Roodepoort today (25 September 2012) that it has rolled out 204 new 2G sites and 696 new 3G sites in 2012 thus far.<\/p>\n

This translates to an increase in the population coverage of their 3G network from 44% to close to 65%, MTN chief technology officer, Kanagaratnam Lambotharan<\/a> told journalists.<\/p>\n

In its financial results reporting for the period up to 30 June 2012, MTN said that its 3G population coverage was 56%. This suggests that MTN has increased its 3G population coverage by 9 percentage points in just under three months.<\/p>\n

EDGE coverage has been extended from 78% to 92%, Lambotharan said, while MTN\u2019s 2G network now services 98.6% of South Africa\u2019s population, covering 79.2% of the land.<\/p>\n

Looking at just the number of 2G sites (6,772) there has been no change since MTN\u2019s last financial results.<\/p>\n

\"Kanagaratnam

Kanagaratnam Lambotharan<\/p><\/div>\n

Lambotharan said that they have around 800 sites with HSPA+ coverage. He explained that the speed at which they roll out HSPA is related to how quickly they can roll out fibre to the sites they want to upgrade.<\/p>\n

They are able to switch on the HSPA+ at a site within weeks of rolling out fibre to it, Lambotharan said.<\/p>\n

As MTN improved its coverage and capacity, Lambotharan said, they have also noticed an increase in data usage on the network.<\/p>\n

In the last 12 months there has been a 200% increase in 2G and 3G data on MTN. According to Lambotharan this has to do not just with increased capacity and coverage, but also in the larger amount of data-enabled devices they\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n

The table below shows the number of new base transceiver stations (BTS) that have been rolled out and upgraded:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Sites<\/td>\n2011 (H1+H2)<\/td>\n2012 (to date)<\/td>\nCumulative<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2G<\/td>\n314<\/td>\n204<\/td>\n6772<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
U900 3G<\/td>\n110<\/td>\n217<\/td>\n317<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
U2100 3G<\/td>\n488<\/td>\n379<\/td>\n3534<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
BTS<\/acronym> modernisation<\/td>\n>1000<\/td>\n>1300<\/td>\n>2800<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
BTS connected by fibre<\/td>\n517<\/td>\n>550<\/td>\n>1067<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

MTN boosts broadband network<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN wants 85% broadband coverage in 2013<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN LTE network plans revealed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LTE in SA looms<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN reveals how many sites it has and how much of SA\u2019s population its network covers, with plans to continue expanding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":32426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[15727,311,15725,35,339,1011,42,6623,755],"class_list":["post-60659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-2g","tag-3g","tag-edge","tag-headline","tag-hspa","tag-kanagaratnam-lambotharan","tag-mtn","tag-network-coverage","tag-umts900"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60659"}],"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=60659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60869,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60659\/revisions\/60869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}