Cellular coverage in South Africa is a tricky thing to get right, especially when it comes to newer technologies such as LTE.
In February OpenSignal reported that South Africa only had 68.3 percent 4G coverage with average speeds of 20.39Mbps. For comparison, South Korea has 97.49 percent coverage while Singapore enjoys average speeds of 44.31Mbps.
In a bid to improve coverage for its customers, Cell C concluded a new roaming agreement with MTN this week.
The agreement will see Cell C piggybacking on MTN’s infrastructure to deliver 4G to rural areas outside the main cities of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and Pretoria.
Because of this Cell C’s 4G coverage increases from 33 percent to 80 percent.
This is a massive change for Cell C which has had a roaming agreement with Vodacom since 2001.
“The roaming agreement with MTN best meets our needs as a company and we are expecting to complete the implementation in the next few months,” Cell C chief executive officer Jose Dos Santos said in a statement.
The deal also includes seemless handover which was absent from Cell C’s agreement with Vodacom. Cell C says this will lead to fewer dropped calls as you move around but we will only really be able to test that once the rollout of this agreement begins.
“Following our in-depth analysis, we know this roaming agreement will bring exceptional value to all parties, particularly to our customers,” said Dos Santos.
