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Cell C heads to court over banner

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 10 Nov 2014
A photograph taken this morning, posted on Twitter, of the banner Cell C has approached the High Court to have removed.
A photograph taken this morning, posted on Twitter, of the banner Cell C has approached the High Court to have removed.

Cell C has launched an urgent High Court application to have a scathing banner erected by an angry customer, outside the WorldWear shopping centre in north Johannesburg, removed.

Cell C says it took the action after letters of demand it issued to both the customer responsible for the banner, which reads "Cell C - the most useless service provider in South Africa", and management of WorldWear, were ignored.

The operator, which did not indicate when the matter would be heard, said this morning it was "attempting to resolve the dispute".

The banner was put up along the busy intersection of Beyers Naude Drive and Wilson Street in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Fairland on Friday and has since drawn a lot of attention on social media.

A woman known only as Beverley called in to Talk Radio 702 over the weekend, to explain what led to her boss - a "private businessman" - taking the step.

She told 702 radio host Xolani Gwala her boss commissioned the banner after months of fighting with the Sandton City Cell C branch over an issue he had with his service. "We tried every which way to get hold of somebody, anybody to speak to at Cell C to explain to Cell C what the problem was, and we were stonewalled all the way.

"We could never get through to anybody senior; we eventually got one e-mail address but they block all the other e-mails and when we couldn't get any further my boss sat me down and said 'this is what they do to every little man out there; I've got money! On behalf of everybody watch me I'm going to put up a board and then we'll see what they do'."

She said, "to be fair", her boss added in small print "perceived by the owner of this billboard" on top of the accusation. "We were fair. My boss actually said it's his perception that [Cell C] was the most useless service provider. He wasn't going to say they are the most useless. Judging from Twitter, there are a lot of other people who seem to have the same perception, but he wasn't going to speak for them."

Cell C survival

Meanwhile, the sustainability of Cell C also came under the spotlight recently, after Cell C CEO Jose Dos Santos on Friday reportedly told Parliament's portfolio committee on telecoms and postal services that the survival of Cell C hinged on whether deals Vodacom and MTN had in the pipeline were allowed to go through.

Vodacom is awaiting approval from the Competition Commission around a R7 billion purchase of second network operator Neotel, while MTN in May entered into a heads of agreement with Telkom - Neotel's much stronger rival - for mobile network sharing.

This morning, Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said Cell C's survival would come down to the amount of capital the operator is able to invest in its network. Vodacom will spend about R8.5 billion this year in SA alone, he said. "You've got to put that in."

He said there was "enough space for everybody" in SA's telecoms industry, but said Cell C would need a capital injection.

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