Communications group Cell C has completed its network migration ahead of schedule, opening access to about 14 000 towers countrywide, 12 000 sites of which are fourth-generation- and long-term-evolution-enabled.

In what has been described as a significant milestone for Cell C, the migration has effectively increased its network access nearly three-fold in less than three years, from 5 500 towers to 14 000.

“We are the first mobile operator to think about our network strategy differently and instead of trying to build out an expensive and unsustainable network we chose to become a buyer of network services,” said Cell C chief technology officer Schalk Visser, highlighting that the market now comprised those that owned infrastructure and those that bought infrastructure as a service.

“This ground-breaking model has propelled Cell C’s network footprint forward by 20 years,” he said.

Cell C would have had to invest billions each year to deploy a physical radio access network in the traditional mobile network operator model to successfully compete with South Africa’s larger mobile operators.

“It is a win for Cell C’s customers as they will benefit from the expanded national coverage, better quality connection, fewer dropped calls and generally a more stable network during loadshedding as the partner network is investing in back-up power,” he said, noting that the company had access to best-in-class infrastructure, could benefit from scale and had reduced network expenses and capital expenditure on costly infrastructure.

Cell C deactivated its own physical tower and radio access network (RAN) and seamlessly migrated prepaid and mobile virtual network operator customers to a virtualised RAN enabled by a network infrastructure partner.

The company uses its own spectrum and is still fully in control of the customer experience.

“We can now focus our investment and energies into innovating products and services that will add value to customers, knowing that we can operate from a competitive platform that offers the same quality connectivity to all South Africans,” Visser concluded.