World Cup communications success

Communicating anywhere, anytime on any device during the World Cup in South Africa has been declared a 100% success and leading technology and services provider, Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), has been recognised as key to making this happen. During the period of the event the network carried a data equivalent of approximately 300 hours of DVD viewing or 1Terabyte of data and the voice traffic reached three times the average value of minutes of use per subscribers on MTN’s network, the tournament’s official telecommunications network, which was powered by Ericsson.

Powering a local successful network during the World Cup was a global affair for Ericsson, who used their highly-skilled global support organisation, including teams from South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Canada. This enabled MTN to ensure that spectator’s constant need to communicate through their mobile devices by making local and international calls or engaging in social networking on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter during the tournament was met at all times.

In an effort to ensure that MTN’s network was well prepared for the traffic influx, Ericsson conducted network audits and health checks before recommending certain changes to the MTN network months before the tournament descended on South Africa. The technology and services giant also successfully anticipated and planned for network traffic peaks for each of the 64 matches that were played in the ten stadiums located around the country each separated by hundreds of kilometers from one another.

Lars Linden, Head of Region sub-Saharan Africa emphasised, “We believe that our long-standing partnership with MTN, that has seen the operator secure Ericsson’s End-to-End Network in South Africa,  enabled us to sufficiently prepare and manage their network for the World Cup and resulted in an average of only 0.3% dropped calls during the entire duration of the soccer spectacular.”

MTN South Africa fully acknowledged the crucial role played by Ericsson, when Chief Technical Officer Sameer Dave commented, “Ericsson ensured that the highest quality standards and team commitment was met for the duration of the tournament. Thanks to our close cooperation before and during the World Cup, MTN was able to deliver a perfectly smooth network experience locally and abroad. With the help of Ericsson, we were able to successfully cater to over 250 000 international roaming customers who sent about 600 million SMSs and 10 million MMSs during the World Cup. Such has been the success of the MTN network that we have already been approached by several international operators to provide guidance for telecommunication operations at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil,” says Dave.

With a well established presence in Brazil, Ericsson has also in fact already started engaging with local operator’s to secure the next successful World Cup.