Vodacom Group will spend at least R12-billion/year on average on its network in South Africa over the next five years, an acceleration over the average R10-billion/year it spent in the past five years.
The telecommunications operator said on Friday that it made the increased spending commit at this week’s South African Investment Conference.
The increased spending comes as Vodacom and other telecoms operators ramp up their spending on batteries and generators to deal with the rolling power cuts in South Africa caused by failing state-owned utility Eskom’s inability to supply sufficient energy to meet the country’s needs.
Vodacom said its increased spending commitments will “contribute significantly to enhancing network resilience to keep customers connected, further accelerating Vodacom’s deep rural coverage programme to help bridge the digital divide and deepening financial inclusion.”
The increased investment comes as rival MTN South Africa continues to perform better in network performance tests. For some time now, independent experts like Ookla, which owns the popular speedtest.net platform, have rated MTN ahead of Vodacom in network speeds. –
