Cell C has issued a formal notice to its wholesale partners, including Internet Solutions, stating that it will terminate wholesale fixed-LTE services, potentially leaving thousands of retail customers in the lurch.
Browsing: Cell C
S&P Global Ratings has downgraded Cell C’s debt to “D”, or “default” – its lowest-possible “junk” rating – after the mobile operator “failed to make interest payments on certain bilateral loan facilities” due last month.
Cell C’s largest shareholder, Blue Label Telecoms, will delay publication of its full-year financial results until late September to deal with various issues related to the mobile operator’s recapitalisation and restructuring.
Regulators, including Icasa and the Competition Commission, will have to be pragmatic and lenient about a looming expanded tie-up between Cell C and MTN South Africa if the former isn’t going to go to the wall.
Cell C said late on Thursday that it is up to date with all payments to MTN South Africa for its national roaming agreement.
Cell C has missed several payments to national roaming partner MTN South Africa, underscoring the dire financial straits in which the country’s third-largest mobile operator finds itself.
MTN Group’s first-half earnings rose as Africa’s largest wireless carrier pushed ahead with an asset disposal plan and saw strong profit growth in its biggest market of Nigeria.
Financially strained telecommunications operator Cell C said on Wednesday that it has finalised a term sheet for a further national roaming agreement with rival MTN South Africa.
Cell C’s board has appointed Douglas Craigie Stevenson as its permanent CEO. Craigie Stevenson had been serving in act acting capacity for the past five months following the resignation of Jose Dos Santos in March.
Access to data will increase, and prices will fall, only if government gets out of the way and allows companies to have more spectrum and compete more freely. By Christo Hattingh.