{"id":654663,"date":"2026-06-20T10:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=654663"},"modified":"2026-06-20T10:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:36:09","slug":"mtn-turning-its-fibre-network-into-a-sensor-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet-of-things\/654663-mtn-turning-its-fibre-network-into-a-sensor-network.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN turning its fibre network into a sensor network"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MTN is deploying technology that automatically detects when physical disruptions affect its fibre Internet network, which reduces the time it takes to dispatch technicians to fix problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was revealed by group chief technology officer Charles Molapisi, who detailed how the telecom giant expects to create R30 billion in value through AI adoption and products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe lose a lot of service today because of fibre cuts. We have a lot of challenges in terms of excavation, road maintenance, and all of that,\u201d he said during MTN\u2019s Capital Markets Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are now turning the fibre network into a sensor network, which means it actually observes the micro-vibrations on the network and picks up patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that they employed agentic AI, which began to learn how the fibre network is supposed to behave, and alert technicians to fluctuations in connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molapisi said the technology would shorten the time required to diagnose and repair damage to the fibre network, which previously took about 8 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen people are mobilising, and before they put that TLB down to dig, we are already there to manage and support ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mazen Mrou\u00e9, CEO of digital infrastructure at MTN, revealed that the group expected its fibre footprint across Africa to expand significantly in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The telecom\u2019s fibre network will expand to between 420,000km and 560,000km by 2030 as it targets 100 million new data customers in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we look at the fibre core, our fibre footprint is expected to grow, increasing by three times from our current 140,000 kilometres over the next five years,\u201d said Mrou\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis will be backed by subsea capacity, which is important for connecting the African continent to the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the group expected its subsea cable capacity to double heading into 2030. The group manages subsea and terrestrial wholesale capacity through its subsidiary, Bayobab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R30 billion in value from AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Charles Molapisi, MTN Group chief technology officer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Molapisi was outlining MTN\u2019s group-wide AI strategy, which included internal adoption across the company to increase efficiency and the release of new AI products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These new products will be geared to both regular customers and businesses, and will include the creation of small language models and the leasing of compute from its data centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe promise we are making, and this is our ambition, is that in three to five years, through AI, we must deliver R30 billion in value creation,\u201d said Molapisi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that R15 billion of that amount would be created by AI Inside, the company\u2019s plan to adopt AI across its internal processes. This adoption was a near certainty for MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the rollout of AI products to customers and businesses accounted for the remaining R15 billion, which was a riskier goal, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDepending on what happens on B2C, who knows what the number will become, but we are a little bit more certain in terms of our ability to execute on AI Inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molapisi said the company was deploying smart agents across its network to help its technicians with incident management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These agents would also be used to tune some parameters through an approval process on the network, with Molapisi calling it \u201ca significant gain for MTN.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what every telco in the world is doing, and the assurance I am leaving with the investors today is that we are not far behind; I think we are moving at a faster rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agentic AI for SIM registration in Nigeria<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Mazen Mrou\u00e9, CEO for digital infrastructure at MTN Group<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A significant portion of the company\u2019s AI innovations for customers is focused on Nigeria, its largest market by revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the West African country, the group has rolled out agent-aided SIM registrations, where 13 AI agents are helping customers register their SIM cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously, the work was handled by around 200 employees across the country who handled registrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c13 automated agents work together to distribute the load. When I say agent, I mean agentic AI. We expect this solution will scale across many markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe expect it should give us proper upside in terms of improvement, accuracy, and compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molapisi said that human employees would be kept in the loop to address governance and control issues related to registrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN is using AI agents to automatically detect breaks in its expanding fibre network to shorten the time it takes to fix problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":639951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92837,50977],"tags":[102129,27887,91333,75200,887,10748,90034,11199,11339],"class_list":["post-654663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-internet-of-things","tag-agentic-ai","tag-ai","tag-bayobab","tag-charles-molapisi","tag-fibre-1","tag-fibre-network","tag-mtn-fibre","tag-mtn-group","tag-mtn-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654663"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654663"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654775,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654663\/revisions\/654775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}