Johannesburg, 06 Oct 2022
Lebo Masalesa, who was appointed the Managing Executive: Mobile Network at Telkom early this year, talks about being part of the team behind the phenomenal growth of Telkom Mobile over the past 12 years. He now heads the business as it shifts to the next phase of the data-hungry new normal.
Masalesa finds himself confronted by the scourge of challenges, including infrastructure vandalism and theft and load-shedding, while needing to future-proof the network with emerging technologies. Masalesa says he "sleeps with one eye open" thinking about how to ensure the network is stable and grows to meet the needs of all South African consumers from different walks of life.
He says: “The environment we operate in will always have challenges impacting customer satisfaction and quality. The team has done well overall to keep the levels within an acceptable range, but there are always areas for improvement. We keep investing in the network and growing it, because as our customer base grows and data demands increase, this is always a moving target.”
With over 17 million customers on the network, Telkom Mobile has shown strong growth since its launch in 2010. Masalesa says: “It’s been a hard slog, and we think we have managed to acquire so many customers due to the fact that we have been able to offer very compelling products and good value, with limited resources from a coverage spectrum point of view.”
He adds: “Where competitors were sitting on legacy voice technologies, we went straight into leveraging the data market.” This move created a good foundation for future growth for Telkom Mobile.
Masalesa says: “We came into the market and changed the data narrative. Fast forward to today and we have created an environment where data is a lifeline for South Africans. We are now looking at an average data consumption of close to 10Gb per customer per month, and this consumption is growing rapidly.”
To meet the expected explosion in demand for more data, Telkom Mobile is continuously optimising its network, making the best possible use of additional spectrum and readying for 5G connectivity.
Masalesa explains: “We were at a disadvantage and only able to obtain 42MHz of spectrum in the auction, whereas competitors got up to 110MHz. Nevertheless, we started in earnest to deploy it to plug coverage holes, which means customers have benefited through improved coverage and fewer dropped calls. On top of that, we got 22MHz of the 3 500MHz spectrum, and the regulator assigned this next to our existing 28MHz, so together we have one big carrier. This is important, because to efficiently deploy 5G you need a contiguous carrier. That’s what we are doing now – taking that contiguous spectrum and deploying sites for 5G.”
He notes that Telkom has the right building blocks in place for a network that will continue to meet the growing demands of South Africans. “We have been able to deploy a 4G technology which gives the same performance as 5G, giving customers a near-5G experience. 5G will take it one notch up, giving us the ability to scale up drastically – from 1G to 10G of backhaul at site level.
“As Telkom, we have started deploying 5G infrastructure, with a presence in all major cities and very aggressive plans to expand the coverage to other parts of the country. We haven’t yet launched this commercially, but this offers a good base for future commercial plans,” he says.
As Telkom Mobile moves towards 5G commercialisation, Masalesa and his team are focused on network stability and quality of service, in addition to overcoming challenges by external forces such as infrastructure vandalism. He says: “There are lots of things coming our way and a lot of work ahead. I do experience sleepless nights considering network stability. There’s no time to relax – I have to keep marching on to ensure the network is stable and grows, to give our growing customer base the experience they need and have come to expect from Telkom.”
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