JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The mobile network operators in South Africa will be expecting a boost in traffic as the Cricket World Cup 2003 gets under way.
MTN South Africa, one of the event sponsors, said it has made significant changes to its existing infrastructure in anticipation of the additional demand. The company has added six base stations in crucial capacity areas of network concentration, such as around the 11 Cricket World Cup venues and at the country’s major airports and certain hotels.
Vodacom and Cell C have made no plans to increase capacity around the high demand areas because of the recent upgrades made during the World Summit held in Johannesburg late in 2002. Currently, Cell C is roaming on the Vodacom network until its own network can be fully established, which means the operator will not make any moves to cater to the expected increase in traffic. However, both believe they have adequate capacity to deal with the additional traffic.
Karel Pienaar, MTN South Africa group executive, network group, said: “We have catered for the expected demand during the Cricket World Cup based on our experience from the World Summit, an event that saw minimal network congestion and provided close to 100-percent cellular coverage.”
The networks have stated that they will monitor all base station activity during the Cricket World Cup and do not expect any problems with the GSM networks during the two-month event.
