The Western Cape is gearing up for what appears to be yet another record-setting festive season in 2024 as more domestic and international visitors flock to the province to enjoy its beautiful beaches, wine farms and nature reserves.
Vodacom Western Cape region has implemented significant network upgrades to meet the rising traffic demands, ensuring that visitors to the province remain connected during the busy festive season.
“We have pledged to invest R350-million this financial year to enhance the quality, capacity, and reach of our broadband network infrastructure across the Western Cape. As we approach the busy festive season, we are confident that our improvements will help us manage congestion and keep our customers connected even in busy tourist hotspots,” says Carol Hall, managing executive for Vodacom Western Cape region.
To maximise network reliability during the festive period, Vodacom Western Cape has ensured that their network maintenance operations will be fully operational throughout the season, focusing resources on areas surrounding holiday hotspots. The network capacity has been significantly improved, with 5G added to 50 towers and additional 4G capacity added to 384 towers.
These upgrades are supported by the deployment of six temporary base stations for holiday hotspots and ten new permanent base stations across the province. With continued focus on improving network reliability,119 towers received battery upgrades, 37 towers received power infrastructure upgrades and 29 new standby generators were installed at key network facilities.
Vandalism at base stations and battery theft remains a major problem for the local telco industry as the criminal activity causes disruptions to network services, resulting in frequent downtime for customers. Vodacom has adopted a comprehensive approach to managing this.
“Unfortunately, theft and vandalism continue to challenge our goal of providing exceptional connectivity. We are actively seeking ways to minimize downtime due to power outages and have adopted a multi-layered approach to managing energy-related challenges,” says Hall. “By upgrading our infrastructure and investing in high-end site security to mitigate theft of batteries and generators, we are excited to offer our customers superior connectivity wherever they travel.
“Tourism, both local and international, is a key economic contributor. We aim to provide our users with peace of mind and a world-class network experience as they explore everything our beautiful province has to offer.”