Vodacom sees 40% data traffic growth with surge in demand

FILE PHOTO: A Vodacom branch in Cape Town, South Africa

FILE PHOTO: A Vodacom branch in Cape Town, South Africa

Published Apr 17, 2020

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DURBAN - Vodacom's data traffic has surged by 40percent, following the implementation of the lockdown, boosted by the increased demand from people working remotely.

“Following the implementation of lockdown regulations in South Africa we noted a surge in data traffic on the network of up to 40percent in comparison to pre-lockdown implementation due to increased traffic, as people work and entertain from home, but also due to zero-rating certain education, government and health sites to assist during the crisis,” the country’s largest mobile operator said yesterday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa increased the initial 21-day lockdown period for a further two weeks until the end of this month.

“We are expecting this trend to continue in the short- to medium-term as more customers work from home and people using technology to remain connected, educated and entertained,” Vodacom said.

The group said that its engineers were working on the network to cater for additional demand.

“Where necessary we have the opportunity to offload more of our capacity to the Rain network in terms of our existing 4G roaming agreement with this partner,” the group said.

Vodacom said it had thrown its weight behind government’s initiatives to contain the pandemic and was working under strict conditions across all its operations to limit potential Covid-19 transmissions.

The group had ensured that it was in a position to meet its short-term liquidity and had a strong balance sheet, despite the Covid-19 outbreak.

“In order to ensure that short-term liquidity can be met and volatility absorbed, existing committed facilities with banks have been doubled by converting shadow facilities to committed facilities resulting in a total of R8billion committed facilities.”

Vodacom will release its results for the year to end March on May 11.

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