South African mobile operator Cell C will invest R6-billion over the next two years in the further roll-out of its long-term evolution (LTE) network to other provinces, after having commercially launched the service in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal this week.

The company had, to date, spent R2-billion on the roll-out of the LTE service this year and planned to extend coverage to the greater parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in 2016 and 2017.

Further, it had brought the roll-out of the service in the Western Cape forward, with 200 LTE sites in the province to be live before the end of the year.

The LTE service would provide customers with download speeds of 30 Mb/s.

CEO Jose Dos Santos on Wednesday said the biggest challenge facing the telecommunications industry was the shortage of spectrum.

He highlighted that the switch to LTE would see all Cell C subscribers move from a 1 800 MHz spectrum to a 900 MHz spectrum, which meant that the third-generation experience would be enhanced, while second-generation customers would be merged to the 1 800 MHz spectrum.

“If you compare it to our competitors, most of them have done it, but we spent a lot of time optimising the network. Better late than never,” he quipped.

In a bid to attract more users to the network, Cell C also launched a deal where it would offer 1 000 customers in Gauteng and 500 in KwaZulu-Natal the chance to buy 100 GB of data, valid for three months, for R100.

The sims would need to be bought at its head office in Buccluech Johannesburg and the KwaZulu-Natal regional office in Umhlanga. The offer would start on October 1.

Meanwhile, the company had also introduced WiFi calling to its entire customer base, which would be active by October 1.

This would turn any WiFi hotspot into a Cell C base station, providing customers extended coverage to make calls and send SMSs. Customers needed to ensure that the WiFi calling icon appeared at the top of their smartphone screens when using the service.

During October, the service would be released on the AG Shine, ZTE V6 and ZTE V6 Lite handsets, followed by Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge in November.

“We’re already in talks with other handset manufacturers, including Blackberry, Sony, Microsoft, LG and Apple about WiFi calling and the release date on these handsets,” Dos Santos noted.

Asked whether this put Cell C ahead of its competitors, he told Engineering News Online that other operators may not want to roll out this type of service.

CONTRACT BUY-OUT
Dos Santos pointed out that about 50 000 customers had, to date, opted for its Contract Buy-Out proposition, which was introduced in May.

This saw the operator paying out between R1 000 and R10 000 towards the termination fees of prospective clients’ contracts with rival mobile operators.

Asked whether this had an impact on the company’s bottom line, Dos Santos averred, “The world has changed. Cell C has reinvented itself; there’s nothing wrong with debt and our shareholders are behind our business. The company is now profitable, generating an operating profit month-by-month”.