South African mobile carrier Cell C has quietly launched its 5G mobile network.
The company's network coverage map also shows that 5G coverage is now live across major cities including Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, and Gqeberha.
Cell C has launched the service with little fanfare as there's been no launch event, which has been the industry standard.
The telco runs its network through roaming agreements with MTN and Vodacom, rather than building out its own radio network.
It comes after Cell C previously completed its network migration in 2023, in a move that saw the South African mobile network operator deactivate its own physical tower and radio access network (RAN).
By doing this, Cell C said it was able to migrate its prepaid and mobile virtual network operator customers to a virtualized RAN enabled by MTN, its network infrastructure partner.
“We’ve technically got the widest 5G coverage in the country at the moment,” Jorge Mendes, CEO, Cell C, told Tech Central. “We’ve got all of Vodacom’s 5G sites, and we’ve got all of MTN’s 5G sites, both on their 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz [spectrum bands].”
He told the publication that any customer with a 5G handset standing in a 5G coverage area is already getting 5G.
He added that 5G won't offer a huge difference on 4G for consumers, which may explain the carrier's quiet launch of the service, though he does note that 5G will enable use cases such as Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
Although the radio network has been provided by roaming partners, Cell C provided its Core for the 5G network.
The launch coincided with the carrier's financials last week. For the full year 2026, the carrier reported total group revenue of ZAR 12.64 billion (US$789 million), up 14 percent year-on-year (YoY), with service revenue of ZAR 11.64bn (US$726m), up six percent.
In total, the carrier added 1.3 million subscribers during the year, an increase of 19 percent. Cell C's total customer base now sits at 8.884 million, which doesn't include the 5.713 million MVNO subscribers using its network.
Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cell-c-launches-5g-network-in-south-africa/
