South Africa’s Cell C has launched an R200,000,000 ($20M) network upgrade in Johannesburg which will see it set up 100 sites in the next three months in a move to up its network capacity and improve quality as it races to have 4340 outdoor and indoor sites on air by year end.
The 100 sites will be in addition to the firm’s already existing 959 sites in Johannesburg. The roll out starts with the first 19 live before end of this month. The areas earmarked include Sandton, Fourways, Bryanston, Morningside, Soweto and Benoni amongst others.
According to Alan Knott-Craig, Cell C CEO, “Traffic on our network has doubled over the past year and we’ve been hard at work rolling out new sites and installing additional capacity to cater for this growth and restore quality.”
“In particular, the network in Johannesburg and Pretoria has been taking strain. In addition to the new sites, we have also embarked on a project to optimise close to 900 existing sites in Johannesburg and Pretoria to improve coverage and minimise interference on the network in high-density areas. We expect these activities to be completed by the end of November 2013,” Alan added.
The firm will also be building an additional 70 indoor coverage sites in Johannesburg and Pretoria. It promises to roll out new sites, upgrade and optimise existing sites and add additional capacity across its network nationally.