Long lead times in securing permission from government agencies to build infrastructure as well as ongoing delays in the allocation of access to additional frequency spectrum is putting MTN and other operators in a “precarious” and “extremely difficult” position where they are now struggling to maintain quality of service.

That’s the warning from MTN South Africa chief technology officer Eben Albertyn, who was speaking at public hearings on Friday into the state of competition in the information and communications technology industry. The hearings were called by communications regulator Icasa.

Albertyn said MTN is finding it “very challenging” to provide 2G, 3G and 4G services to customers, particularly in metropolitan areas, because of the time it takes get permits to build new infrastructure.

In some parts of South Africa, it can take nearly a year to secure rights of way for new infrastructure. “It’s getting close to being prohibition,” Albertyn said.

He said MTN has invested a “huge amount of time and money” to find ways of constructing new infrastructure, including base stations.

This includes disguising towers as lampposts and hiding them better on the sides of buildings.

“We are trying everything we can to find a quid pro quo with the communities we operate in.”

Securing access to new sites is crucial to deal with huge demand for data from consumers, he said.

“We are in a [data] tsunami, at least us, and probably the other big operator. We are finding it difficult to comply with the quality-of-service requirements we have. We are really, really struggling.”

To address the demand for data, MTN must build new sites “very fast”. It must also get access to additional spectrum, Albertyn said.

Government has stalled for years in issuing a policy direction on access to high-demand spectrum in the 800MHz and 2,6GHz bands, both of which are well suited to delivering 4G mobile broadband networks based on long-term evolution technology.

Without access to new spectrum and with traffic growing the way it is, MTN will have to build 65 000 new towers a year by 2020 to keep up with consumer demand.