After several weeks of no or limited Vodacom signal, services have been fully restored.

A dispute between cellphone service providers Vodacom and MTN left residents with no or limited services for at least a month after MTN allegedly decided to no longer use the cellphone tower situated in Steiltes which it shared with Vodacom.

Louisa van Wyk, the service provider’s executive head for Mpumalanga, confirmed that it provided coverage to Matumi Estate and the surrounding areas.

Zakhele Jiyane, its managing executive of Mpumalanga, confirmed that the incident had to do with a contractual dispute between MTN and the landlord.

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Jiyane explained that Vodacom was informed by MTN to remove the base station equipment on October 30, citing their inability to reach an agreement on the lease renewal.

“The effective notice period was 20 days. Normally, the notice period to remove equipment is 90 days. Subsequent to this, the tower owner arrived on site on October 30 to remove the equipment. This gave us little time to notify our customers about the site deactivation.”

However, customers claim they were not informed at all.

Jiyane said it is their firm belief that the sharing agreement notice period had been violated, and therefore they were not willing to move their equipment.

“However, because the electrical supply was cascading from the tower owner, when they switched off their site, Vodacom’s site was also switched off. Crucially, in the removal of their equipment, the tower owner damaged Vodacom’s equipment, impacting the possibility of a speedy reactivation.”

Since then Vodacom worked around the clock to find a permanent solution. The new location at Matumi is technically viable and has a willing landlord.