{"id":85639,"date":"2013-08-31T23:33:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T21:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=85639"},"modified":"2013-08-31T23:33:16","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T21:33:16","slug":"cell-c-network-perfect-in-three-months-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/85639-cell-c-network-perfect-in-three-months-ceo.html","title":{"rendered":"Cell C network “perfect” in three months: CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cell C<\/a> CEO, Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> is hopeful that the operator\u2019s network will be \u201cperfect\u201d by the end of November.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month (22 August 2013) Cell C announced that it would roll out an additional 100 sites in Johannesburg over the next three months at a cost of R200 million, in an effort to alleviate its strained network.<\/p>\n

This is in addition to an existing 959 sites in Johannesburg, with the first 19 new sites expected to be on air by the end of August.<\/p>\n

Cell C subscribers have voiced their displeasure over the quality of the operator\u2019s network in recent months.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig told CNBC Africa this week that Cell C has increased its customer base by as much as 30% to 11.7 million, \u201cin the last year and a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe traffic has doubled, and that is the voice traffic. When you come to the data traffic, I think it\u2019s quadrupled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The company lead said that in Johannesburg in particular, \u201cthat\u2019s where we have seen consumers saying look we are going to go for a better price\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn particular, the network in Johannesburg and Pretoria has been taking strain. In addition to the new sites, we have also embarked on a project to optimise close to 900 existing sites in Johannesburg and Pretoria to improve coverage and minimise interference on the network in high-density areas,\u201d the CEO said in a press statement in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe build about 120 (base stations) per month in the country, a large portion of which are built in Joburg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig admitted that the company needed to get its act together in terms of quality in Johannesburg \u2013 \u201cand we will do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And when questioned when that will happen, Knott-Craig said: \u201cEnd of November\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that the company has put a very well qualified team in place, just for Johannesburg, where he said the amount of traffic growth defies belief for a country so close to saturation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir brief is that everything has got to be perfect by the end of November,\u201d Knott-Craig said.<\/p>\n

When questioned whether R200 million was enough of an investment, Knott-Craig pointed out that it\u2019s incremental, having recently received an injection of $350 million from its shareholder, Oger Telecoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2013, Cell C said it would have 4,340 outdoor and indoor sites on air.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig said that the data prices in South Africa today were very low, while the voice prices were \u201cvery competitive\u201d.<\/p>\n

More on Cell C network<\/h3>\n

Cell C R200 million network upgrade in Gauteng<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Network quality: Vodacom vs MTN vs Cell C<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C network quality complaints<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C\u2019s massive virtual network plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C network problems explained<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig is hopeful that their network will be \u201cperfect\u201d by the end of November<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340875,"featured_media":74325,"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":[681,355,21199,35],"class_list":["post-85639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-cell-c","tag-cnbc","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85639"}],"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\/340875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85639"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85671,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85639\/revisions\/85671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}