Speaking to journalists in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Visser said Cell C is preparing its technology stack to facilitate the migration to 4G, but that mobile operators, communications regulator Icasa and cellphone retailers still have much work to do to get the right kind of devices in the hands of consumers.
"We still get 2G-only devices coming into the country. This is the biggest hindrance to getting migration to 4G done - and this is the same for everybody in the industry. This speaks to the regulator and the role they must play to make the sunsetting of legacy technologies successful," said Visser. And its not as if cost is an issue anymore 4G feature phones are available in South Africa for as little as R199.
Cell C's termination of legacy 2G and 3G technologies will also depend on the readiness of its roaming partners, MTN and Vodacom, which Cell C relies on to provide services.
Visser said his priority in the past year has been the improvement of Cell C's multi-operator core network Mocn roaming system. Mocn roaming allows Cell C to create a virtual representation of its network on top of either MTN or Vodacom's infrastructure, giving users an experience akin to using Cell C's "native" network.
The virtual layer on the MTN side is completed, and Visser is aiming to complete the equivalent on Vodacom by March.
