{"id":13214,"date":"2012-05-24T00:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=13214"},"modified":"2012-05-24T00:17:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T22:17:09","slug":"better-network-the-answer-says-vodacom-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/13214\/better-network-the-answer-says-vodacom-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Better network the answer, says Vodacom CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom<\/a> CEO, Pieter Uys<\/a> says that a better, faster and more efficient network is good preparation for a high-volume, low-margin data-based environment which may emerge in the mobile operator market.<\/p>\n

Cell C<\/a> CEO, Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> recently said that cellular operators will have to adapt their business models to accommodate the high-volume, low-margin data environment (instead of the current business models relying on high margin voice revenue).<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re working with very tight margins; huge amounts of traffic coming at you, or will be coming at you; much, much lower prices on data, sucking in customers; [you’re] probably going to find a lot of the voice going on the data networks in future \u2013 so [you’ve] got to do something about that cost structure, there\u2019s no question about that,\u201d said Knott-Craig.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig said that Cell C is well-positioned to compete in this changing business environment because it is a much smaller company than Vodacom and MTN<\/a>, which means it can adapt to changing business models easier.<\/p>\n

However, Vodacom\u2019s Uys is confident that Vodacom is well prepared for what is to come in the cellular space, partly because of their continued network improvement and coverage growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been busy with this over the last few years, replacing network equipment with the latest technologies, gaining quality and efficiencies. We have also been working hard at self-providing transmission to as many high capacity base stations as possible,\u201d said Uys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key success factor here is network quality and capacity. We increased Group capex<\/a> 37% year-on-year and focused on adding base stations, swapping out equipment and self-providing transmission. We intend to keep capex at a similar level (11-13% of revenue), so that we have the capacity to deal with higher volumes of data traffic, and keeping the business models balanced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uys added that disruptive technologies like Voice over data (using VoIP<\/a> technology) will not hurt Vodacom. \u201cOur business plans assume data prices going down, higher data volumes, new technologies, and new services,\u201d said Uys.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buckle up for mobile price war<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN laughs off Vodacom, Cell C prepaid price cuts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C slashes prepaid voice and data prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom cuts prepaid call rates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C looking for 3G roaming partner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys says that a better, faster and more efficient network prepares Vodacom for a changing mobile environment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[43,42,26,87,27],"class_list":["post-13214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-pieter-uys","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13214"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13421,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13214\/revisions\/13421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}