Cell C is planning to launch 5G companies in South Africa within the subsequent couple of months as its monetary turnaround plan beneficial properties traction.
CEO Jorge Mendes advised TechCentral in an interview on Thursday that the corporate is at a complicated stage of getting ready to launch 5G to its subscribers – and it plans to make use of the know-how to ship each 5G on smartphones and to supply a variety of latest, 5G-based fixed-wireless broadband options with massive knowledge bundles that compete with fibre.
Cell C’s 5G launch plans come after a interval of intense negotiations with community companions MTN and Vodacom, which function the last-mile infrastructure that connects customers to the corporate’s core community. Mendes mentioned these discussions have progressed properly and that Cell C is assured it will likely be capable of launch a 5G providing that makes industrial sense.
He mentioned Vodacom and MTN have proved to be good companions and that there’s mutual respect between the three operators, although they compete head-on within the market for a share of customers’ wallets.
Mendes mentioned Cell C’s determination, taken a number of years in the past, to close down its personal radio entry community in favour of outsourcing that perform to Vodacom and MTN has labored properly. Not solely has it considerably diminished the corporate’s capital expenditure, it has additionally enormously improved Cell C’s community high quality, he mentioned.
Cell C has spent the previous 18 months deploying a Mocn – multi-operator community core – roaming system, which has allowed it to create a digital illustration of its community on high of both MTN or Vodacom’s infrastructure.
VoLTE
This, in line with Mendes, has given Cell C considerably better management over the place it directs person site visitors, permitting it to decrease prices and be extra environment friendly.
It is usually aggressively transferring voice calls off previous circuit-switched know-how and onto an web protocol-based know-how generally known as VoLTE that routes calls over 4G/LTE.
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“That is very, very thrilling and is a distinct place from the place we have been 24 months in the past on the know-how aspect,” mentioned Mendes. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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