Discussions on the expansion of an existing roaming agreement continued nearly a year after telecommunications groups Telkom and MTN entered into a heads of agreement.
In March last year, Telkom and MTN entered talks to include bilateral roaming and outsourcing of the operation of Telkom’s radio access network in the current agreement.
MTN would take over financial and operational responsibility for the roll-out and operation of Telkom's radio access network.
Further, the deal would enable the duo to allow respective customers to roam on the respective networks, as well as open full access to the capacity and coverage of both networks through the reciprocal roaming agreements entered into between the parties.
The independent networks would also be configured to allow greater efficiencies, improved quality of service and coverage for MTN and Telkom customers.
The deal was expected to improve the capabilities of each operator to compete at the wholesale and retail levels, allow for the footprint of both parties to increase and enable access to significantly larger voice and data capacity, at lower cost than would otherwise have applied.
MTN and Telkom said an update would be provided upon receipt of the appropriate legal and regulatory approvals.