Cell C Revises its fixed-LTE Services Delivery
By the end of October, mobile operator Cell C will introduce its fixed-LTE services to business partners. Deena Rajah, manager of wholesale business development at Cell C, says this. Less than a week have passed since Cell C concluded its recapitalization agreement before the announcement.
At a breakaway session of the Conext Conference 2022 in Cape Town, organized by the Digital Council Africa, Rajah spoke on the company’s transformation from a traditional telecom to a digital organization. He disclosed that Cell C has adopted a new network approach in which it chose to partner with technology providers and use it in the marketplace rather than owning the technology. Rajah explained that rather than build its own towers and running its personal Radio Access Network, the company now have the purchasing power and collaboration of other network operators. To date, Cell C subscribers have access to 8 775 sites, and 96% of them are LTE-enabled.
“Before the end of 2023, the objective and the target is to get access to 14 000 sites countrywide that would include the more traditional voice services, mobile data services and also the new upcoming fixed-LTE product that we plan to roll out before the end of this year.
“We’re looking forward to taking this to market. It’s a dynamic commercial model that’s built behind it, so if there’s opportunity that you have out there, we would gladly like to enable you and support you with the launch of fixed-LTE products and services.”
fixed-LTE Formula Change after Funding
Wholesale fixed-LTE services were once offered by Cell C, but the company discontinued them because they were no longer lucrative and had a negative influence on the performance of its network. Through Internet Solutions, the mobile operator offered the services. Analysts came to the conclusion that Cell C’s decision to discontinue LTE services was a result of the company’s financial difficulties at the time.
After a prolonged journey, Cell C last week successfully received funding to recapitalize the company. In order to resolve the company’s financial and operational problems, the deal will result in new funds flowing into Cell C. In response to a query regarding the short-term effects of the cash-raising effort, Rajah stated that one of the objectives for wholesale has been met with Capitec’s release of its new mobile product.
“The second dependency is our digital strategy. We could only embark on the digital strategy once we understood where we’re going with our recap programme. Further to that – on the consumer side – you’d certainly see a different and bigger bouquet of services that Cell C will be taking to market.”
Looking to the future, Rajah doesn’t see Cell C being the traditional telco provider it is right now, but rather an applications provider.
“An applications provider in the sense of offering lifestyle applications, for example. Besides having a network that we could take to market and a consumer having a Cell C network product, the consumer would then also acquire a Cell C application-based product.
“I see Cell C having to own the services that we provide to a single consumer out there. The consumer may not have the requirement to go to multiple network or service operators; they can then acquire all or most of it from a single provider. ”