MTN eyes further network improvements, ‘excited’ for 2017
Continued network optimisation is on the cards for MTN South Africa as interim chief technology and information officer Babak Fouladi reports “visibly” improved operational efficiency, five months into his tenure.
With its eye on key network priorities, MTN is planning to mimic the gains and improvements made over the past 12 months in the 2017 financial year.
Fouladi, who had been appointed to the position in June, is responsible for ensuring the network is operating at an optimum level and a higher quality – from a customer’s perspective.
Addressing media during a briefing this week, he noted that capital expenditure reached R11-billion in 2015 and R4.7-billion during the first half of 2016 to improve and expand the South African network.
Around 1 300 new physical sites had been deployed and 2 400 new third-generation sites installed. Further, fibre had passed 12 000 homes and 4 500 long term evolution (LTE) sites – doubling LTE throughput – in the past 18 months.
“This is a great achievement, [however,] you can put the stuff in the ground but if it’s not optimised, you won’t get the right results,” he pointed out.
Therein lies MTN’s targeted design principles focused on customer experience.
The group’s key network priorities were focused on network investments, deploying a customer-centric strategy and approach, network growth and improvement and the adoption of an integrated strategy of continued investment, with visible network growth and improvements seen to date.
MTN is now leveraging an enhanced customer-centric model supported by improved network quality, capacity and speed, guided by monthly drive tests and benchmarking, as well as key performance indicators with customers.
The company also aimed to tackle challenges, including power and vandalism-related outages, critical skills dependency and site acquisitions.
“We are excited for the 2017 roll-out and what we have in store,” Fouladi concluded.
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