MTN South Africa is considering selling off up to half of its base station infrastructure to improve efficiencies, reports local news portal Tech Central, citing managing director Karel Pienaar. The pan-African MTN group has already completed similar infrastructure agreements elsewhere on the continent, in Ghana and Uganda. Commenting on the plans, which are still under consideration, Pienaar said: ‘The infrastructure on the ground, it’s not our core focus, so we don’t leverage it to the extent that perhaps we could. If you put it into an entity that can leverage it, then you have improved efficiencies.’
At present, the company is investigating the feasibility of such a move and is looking at selling the passive infrastructure whilst retaining active elements, for the time being at least: Pienaar added that once Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks are in place, it may also look at divesting older active components. MTN South Africa’s networks consist of around 6,000 towers, whilst it shares spaces on a further 2,000.