by Tech Talk | Feb 23, 2023 | Articles
MTN South Africa is increasing its consumer post-paid subscription fees by an average of 5.1%, blaming a “challenging market environment” for the need to push through the price hikes.
The new prices will come into effect on 1 April.
“The impact of the inflationary environment has resulted in increased input costs, driven by load shedding and rising fuel usage, which has been further aggravated by ongoing battery theft and vandalism,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Describing the increases as “unavoidable”, MTN said it will continue to invest in its network, including in battery roll-out to mitigate against the impact of load shedding.
“In some instances, the actual subscription fee increase may be higher than the average of 5.1%, with a maximum of 7.4%. This mainly represents a R10 increase from R135 to R145 on our Mega XS price plans,” MTN said.
Voice call rates per minute will also be increased on average by 4%, or a maximum of 10c/minute. Out-of-bundle data and SMS rates have been reduced to 25c/MB and 35c/message, respectively.
Instalments on handsets and other devices as part of contract deals will not be affected by the increase.
“We want to assure customers we are working very hard to build the resilience of our network with batteries and generators and added security to guard against theft and vandalism,” the company said.
Details about all of the adjusted prices are included in the MTN-supplied table below. –NewsCentral Media
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by Tech Talk | Feb 1, 2023 | Articles
Foreign minister Naledi Pandor called on mobile operator MTN Group and the Ghana Revenue Authority to find a solution to a US$773-million (R13.3-billion) tax dispute.
Earlier this month, MTN said the Ghana Revenue Authority issued the company’s subsidiary, MTN Ghana, with a bill for back taxes after auditing it for the years 2014 to 2018 and inferring that it had under-declared its revenue by about 30% during the period.
MTN, which has a presence in 19 countries in Africa and the Middle East, said at the time that it disputed the “accuracy and basis” of the assessment and that it would fight it.
Minister Pandor was briefed on the issue this week and called “on the parties involved to do everything possible to find an amicable solution”, the department of international relations & cooperation said in a statement. — Reuters
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by Tech Talk | Jan 23, 2023 | Articles
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said the strategic rationale for consolidation between MTN and Telkom remains, but would not comment on starting discussions with Telkom again.
Last year, MTN entered into discussions to buy Telkom in return for shares or a combination of cash and shares.
The announcement was well-received by investors, with Telkom’s share price jumping 30% and MTN’s stock price increasing 5% on the news.
However, Rain entered the fray with its own proposal. It wanted Telkom to buy Rain for newly issued shares in Telkom.
It muddied the waters as Telkom couldn’t assure MTN that talks were exclusive, which resulted in MTN walking away from the deal.
In January, Telkom announced that it had terminated discussions relating to Rain’s proposal about a potential acquisition.
“After initial discussions, but prior to any due diligence, the parties have decided that a suitable transaction is not possible at this time,” Telkom said.
It opened the door for MTN to engage in discussions with Telkom again, but it is not clear whether MTN is keen.
Commenting on the issue, Mupita said the strategic rationale for consolidation remains. “Nothing of a strategic nature changes in three to six months,” he said.
He said having four mobile players in a market is unsustainable. “You don’t see the third and fourth players having the capacity to invest in their networks,” Mupita said.
“Twenty years ago, it was very different. Voice-centric networks did not require as much capital, which means you could have four to six players.”
“Right now, with data networks, it is quite challenging for a number three. It is the case in Nigeria and Ghana.”
The MTN CEO said the wave of consolidation sweeping across other markets is also relevant in South Africa.
However, he would not comment on whether they will start discussions with Telkom soon. “We pulled out of discussions with Telkom, and there is no further update on that,” Mupita said. – Daily Investor
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by Tech Talk | Nov 24, 2022 | Articles
Several MTN customers have continued to report issues with their Internet connectivity for a second day following an upgrade-induced fault on the operator’s network.
Scores of customers reported that they could not use mobile data or had intermittent connectivity for eight hours on Tuesday, 22 November 2022.
In a statement in the evening, the company explained the issue occurred after an upgrade on a part of its network.
“The fault has been repaired and MTN apologises to any customers that may have been inconvenienced by this matter,” MTN said.
However, from around 07:00 AM on Wednesday, 23 November 2022, it appeared that pockets of MTN users were still having problems.
After a rapid decline in reports on Downdetector by Tuesday evening, there was a slight uptick from just after 05:00 AM on Wednesday.
Most of the reports were flagged with “Mobile Internet” being the problem, followed by “No Signal”.
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by Tech Talk | Nov 23, 2022 | Articles
MTN says that a fault developed on its network after an upgrade, causing intermittent outages for data customers on Tuesday.
“Following an upgrade on a part of the MTN network last night, a fault developed this morning, resulting in some intermittent connectivity issues today,” MTN stated.
“The fault has been repaired and MTN apologises to any customers that may have been inconvenienced by this matter.”
From around 07:00 on 22 November, MTN subscribers started reporting that they could not access the Internet on the operator’s mobile and fixed-LTE networks.
Real-time problem and outage monitoring site Downdetector showed
elevated levels of complaints until around 15:00.
Problem reports dropped off sharply from 15:15 and remained relatively high at 19:00.
Some ongoing complaints include customers who use MVNO services on MTN’s network, like Afrihost Air Mobile and Axxess.
“Any update on hosted LTE networks e.g. Afrihost? MTN mobile working fine but Afrihost LTE connected w/o Internet…” one person said on Twitter.
Afrihost’s network status page said that as of 18:16, MTN engineers were still working on resolving the outage.
Axxess’s network status page also indicated that the outage had not yet been fully resolved.
“Just signed my contract with MTN today and this certainly leaves a bitter taste. Still NO network in my area,” another Twitter user said.
“Literally lost business during this outage! Poor poor service MTN,” saidanother.
This incident is at least the third major outage MTN suffered in the past four months.
On 4 August 2022, the operator’s data network went down in the Free State and Western Cape provinces for over nine hours.
On 12 October 2022, the MTN data network was slow or offline for users across the country for around three hours.
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