MEDIA RELEASE

ICASA PUBLISHES MOBILE QUALITY OF SERVICE MONITORING REPORT FORLIMPOPOAND KWAZULU NATAL PROVINCES

05October 2016

Johannesburg – The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) hereby gives notice for publication of the quarterly Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring test reports pertaining to mobile operators (Cell C, MTN, Telkom and Vodacom) voice services provided in Limpopo Province and KwaZulu Natal Provinces.

The purpose of the reports is to identify shortcomings in the services offered by the mobile operators and promote redress for consumer benefit.In Limpopo, the monitoring was conducted in Ga-Riba/Ga-Nkoana, Tzaneen, Hoedspruit, Modjadjiskloof and Bela-Bela, covering a total distance of 3,358 km. However, in KwaZulu Natal, the monitoring was conducted in Cato Ridge, Pietermaritzburg, Richmond, Mpophomeni and Howick, covering a total distance of 2,574 km.

The Authority conducted the QoS monitoring through drive-testing using TEMS Symphony test equipment. The focus of the drive-test was on network performance in terms of accessibility and retention of voice calls. The metric used to measure the above were Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR) and Drop Call Rate (DCR).

Quality of service is the collective effect of service performance which determines the degree of satisfaction of a user of the service - the capability of a network to provide a quality service to selected network traffic over various technologies such as GSM and WCDMA.

Limpopo QoS report

Summary-In terms of the average results of the sample:

a)Telkom did not meet the Retainability KPI which is expressed as Average Drop Call Rate (ADCR) and other operators (Cell C, MTN, and Vodacom) met the target of below 3%; and

b)All the operators did not meet the Accessibility target of 98% which is expressed as Average Call Set-up Success Rate (ACSSR).

The remedial plans provided by operators include improving site availability, conducting radio optimisation and adding new sites on the network to improve areas with poor coverage. In the areas where Cell C and Telkom did not have continuous coverage, they relied on their respective roaming partners in order to provide wider coverage to their customers.

KwaZulu Natal QoS report

Summary - In terms of the average results of the sample:

a)Vodacom met the Retainability KPI which is expressed as Average Drop Call Rate (ADCR) and all other operators (Cell C, MTN, and Telkom) did not meet the ADCR target of below 3%; and

b)MTN and Telkom met the Accessibility target which is expressed as Average Call Set-up Success Rate (ACSSR). Vodacom and Cell C did not meet the ACSSR target of above 95%.

Telkom stated that the lack of 900MHz spectrum is a challenge for providing rural coverage and that Telkom relies on MTN roaming to provide services to the consumers in areas it did not have coverage. The high dropped call rate was due to lack of seamless handover between its own network and MTN’s network.

ICASA afforded all affected operatorstheopportunity to comment on the areas of concern highlighted by the report and requested them to provide the cause and remedial plans.The Authority has noted all comments received and will encourage remedial plans to be executed for the benefit of consumers.

The full report will be available on the URL below for report retrieval:

Ends…

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