NETWORK PARTNERSHIPS
Liquid Telecom in talks to share idle spectrum
Liquid Telecom is in talks with other network operators about making its idle spectrum, or radio waves, available to them, says the company’s new SA CEO, Reshaad Sha. Mobile operators say they are starved of spectrum, partly because of the government’s slow shift from analogue to digital broadcasting. This makes it more expensive for them to roll out network services. Liquid Telecom, a subsidiary of Econet Global, is SA’s second-largest fibre operator, behind Telkom. It also holds spectrum in the 850MHz, 1.8GHz and 3.5GHz bands, valuable assets, of which it currently does not make full use of. "We’re exploring partnership models that will allow us to increase our level of monetisation of those spectrum assets that we have," said Sha, who joined Liquid Telecom in June from Remgro’s Dark Fibre Africa business. "We’d work with other telcos in the market that also have a need to utilise some of this spectrum to deliver services." "Multiple models" are being considered with the aim of al...
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