MTN South Africa Spent Big to Fight Power Cuts and Boost Network

The telecommunications company, MTN has revealed that it spent a lot of money in 2023 to make its network better. The CEO, Ralph Mupita, told reporters that they used R2.5 billion to make sure the network doesn’t stop working when there are power cuts.

MTN recently shared its financial results for 2023. They said they spent a total of R10.5 billion in South Africa to improve their network. This included the money they used to make the network more reliable.

Making the network better costs a lot of money. In fact, the money MTN spent on this was about 19.5% of the total money they made in South Africa.

Mupita said that where they finished improving the network, it worked 98% of the time. Overall, MTN said the network was available about 95% of the time, which is a big improvement.

When the network works well, customers are happier. MTN noticed that people were more satisfied, and their scores for customer satisfaction went up.

But it’s not just about making the network better. MTN also had to deal with criminals who steal from their cell phone towers. These criminals take batteries and cables that are valuable and sell them.

Last year, MTN took reporters to see towers that had been damaged by criminals. They said it’s not just a problem anymore—it’s a crisis. MTN had thousands of incidents of theft and damage at its towers in just one year.