The roll-out of cellular network operator Cell C`s infrastructure has fallen behind schedule, but the company says it has improved the installation rate of its base stations in urban areas and expects to have1 450 to 1 600 in place by the end of this year.
Cell C said in briefings to the media and analysts in Johannesburg and Cape Town yesterday that most of the problems connected with the roll-out were due to public objections to the proposed locations of the base stations rather than technical problems.
The briefing was addressed by Cell C`s CEO Talaat Laham in Johannesburg, while Western Cape regional manager Christian Faure handled the Cape Town session.
Cell C is the only cellular network operator to have all its services operate on the recently released 1 800MHz band. Currently there are 1 143 live base stations and about 200 micro stations in operations in various urban areas.
The company`s roaming agreement with Vodacom extends for five years in urban areas and up to 15 years for rural roaming. About 50% of its traffic is now on its own network and the roll-out is optimised to meet its licence obligations of an 8% geographical and 60% population coverage and its community service telephone obligations. Siemens is carrying out the network installation.
Cell C also reports that its subscriber base has reached the two million level, although some 445 000 subscribers are currently inactive, meaning they have either not sent nor received calls for the last three months and will be deleted from the system. The growth is said to be five months ahead of projections and the current numbers give Cell C a little more than 10% of total market share.
Faure says the average Cell C prepaid subscriber pays about R70. "This is a little above break-even and a higher average than our rivals have."
The average contract subscriber value is worth about R400, which Cell C says is "better than expected".
Some 55% of Cell C subscribers are new entrants into the market and the rest are churn from its rivals, with 60% of that coming from MTN and 40% from Vodacom, according to Faure.
Cell C predicts the cellular market will grow to about 20 million subscribers by 2010, from the current base of 12.5 million. It expects to take just over 20% of the total market share.
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