Telkom Switches to Vodacom for Roaming Services, abandons MTN

Telkom—wireline and wireless telecommunications provider in South Africa has confirmed its plan to abandon MTN and switch to Vodacom for roaming services. This move comes after they announced that they will not be renewing their contract with MTN in 2018.

The switch to Vodacom will grant Telkom’s subscribers automatic access to Vodacom’s network when they go to areas with little or no Telkom coverage. Prior to the move, Telkom users had to switch manually to the MTN network to maintain network signals. Although the switch does not offer the subscriber’s 4G access, subscribers will still be able to receive network signals.

With this collaboration, Telkom subscribers will no longer concern themselves over dropped calls, lost signals and force switching networks. The collaboration will minimize poor data connections considering that Telkom is leveraging technology to achieve this.

Configuration settings have been set down to move subscribers to the Vodacom network once they attain a certain quality service on Telekom without dropping a call or a session. In essence, if Telkom’s signal is strong enough for subscribers to transact, they will stay on the network. If the signal is always weak, subscribers will be moved to avoid losing the session.