Big spenders: Vodacom says it will invest R800 million in its network in KwaZulu-Natal, including rolling out full fibre broadband, expanding its coverage in deep rural areas. (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Vodacom says it will invest R800 million in its network in KwaZulu-Natal, including rolling out full fibre broadband, expanding its coverage in deep rural areas and investing in back-up energy projects during the 2024-25 financial year.
The company’s investment will include building new network sites and modernising existing sites, Vodacom’s regional managing executive, Imran Khan, told a media briefing on Tuesday.
He said to bridge the digital divide in remote areas of the province, the region will develop new sites in areas that have never had connectivity.
“We are making a significant investment in the network in KwaZulu-Natal in order to achieve our goal of building an inclusive digital society,” Khan said.
The company had set aside resources to roll out 130 new sites in the Ugu, uMhlabuyalingana, abaQulusi and eDumbe local municipalities.
“It is no longer acceptable for deep rural residents to observe the digital revolution from the sidelines, they must participate in it and benefit from the associated socio-economic benefits,” he said.
The bulk of the investment will be ploughed into improving the radio access network, modernising Vodacom’s network infrastructure and using the latest and faster mobile networks such as LTE and 5G. By the end of the current financial year, Vodacom KwaZulu-Natal’s 3G population coverage will increase to 98.89%, 4G to 98.86% and 5G to 50%.
Molefe Mahlangu, Vodacom’s executive head of operations in the province, said in the 2023-24 financial year the company had grown its 5G enabled sites to 271, while its voice revenue had continued to decline. Some 131 sites had been equipped with eight-hour battery back-up to cope with stage four to six load-shedding last seen earlier this year.
“We improved our network availability by four to five percentage points and because of the improved availability for the year to date we have had 32% growth in our data and voice was on the decline,” Mahlangu said.
Apart from rolling out new investment infrastructure the company also handled 1 280 “security incidents” in 2023-34 compared with 1 326 in 2022-23.
“There were some low lights to the year, even though our security incidents reduced from the previous year we saw that out of 1186 batteries 1125 batteries were stolen. There is also a lot of diesel theft. Crime is working against us to improve our network experience,” Mahlangu said.
He added that the stolen batteries had been spotted in adverts on Facebook for sale for R13 000 when the cost of the batteries to the company was in the region of R45 000.
Hotspots for vandalism and theft of its sites included Durban, Pietermaritzburg and KwaDukuza. He said one site had been stripped to nothing and would cost the company R1 million to replace.
“They use chisels and hammers to break the equipment. In one area on the South Coast, we had a staff member hijacked and stabbed while going to site,” he said.
Khan added that the criminals targeting its sites are “armed and dangerous” and where Eskom infrastructure on site has been tampered with the company would opt not to replace the technology.
He said 18-month internships for 100 youths had been provided, of whom 76 have been permanently employed by the company. It donated R650 000 to the relief efforts in oThongathi and Newcastle after a tornado caused devastation and school equipment to learners at Ngqayizivele Primary School in Umlazi and KwaDinda Primary School in Greytown.
Khan said the company had partnered with the provincial government and rolled out solutions such as its Digital Citizens Services platform to digitalise the public sector, which has helped to improve service delivery in education, health and safety, and would roll out prepaid fibre in the townships.
He said the company had spent nearly R10.2 million “on uplifting and helping where needed” in the province.