Cell C rents its way to 5G coverage

Cell C switched on 5G last week without a launch event and without a radio network of its own, running the service over MTN's and Vodacom's infrastructure as the culmination of a strategy formalized in 2023 when it deactivated its own towers and RAN and shifted prepaid and MVNO customers onto a virtualized network run by MTN. The 5G core is Cell C's; the radio layer is rented.

Data Center Dynamics reported the quiet go-live on Monday, citing Tech Central's coverage, and Cell C's own coverage map now shows 5G live in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, and Gqeberha. Chief executive Jorge Mendes told Tech Central that Cell C 'technically' has the widest 5G coverage in the country because it draws on all of Vodacom's and MTN's 5G sites across both the 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz bands.

That is the voice of a reseller, not a builder. Mendes conceded 5G will not feel dramatically different to consumers on 4G; the more durable use case is fixed wireless access, which lets Cell C serve homes and businesses over the air — a sensible pitch for a carrier that wants the product without the capital expenditure.

The launch landed alongside Cell C's full-year 2026 results, which explain why a network-light carrier is still a serious business. Group revenue rose 14% to ZAR12.64bn (US$789mn), service revenue climbed 6% to ZAR11.64bn (US$726mn), and 1.3 million new subscribers — a 19% increase — brought the customer base to 8.884 million, with another 5.713 million MVNO subscribers riding on the network.

The subscriber math matters for infrastructure investors: Cell C can add customers without adding sites, and the 1.3 million new subscribers consume capacity on radios that MTN and Vodacom built and maintain. Traffic growth lands on someone else's balance sheet, the most capital-efficient way to run a mobile operator — and the least controllable.

Cell C sits at the capital-lite end of digital infrastructure and works as a live example of the split that gives hyperscaler-anchored assets infrastructure pricing while everything else fights for capital. It has chosen not to fight for capital at all: it builds no radio network and buys access from two competitors under roaming agreements.

The strategic question is whether a mobile operator can remain relevant on someone else's RAN, and the revenue numbers say Cell C is holding up. But the 5G proposition is a leased asset, and the 'widest coverage in the country' is a byproduct of MTN's and Vodacom's buildouts, not Cell C's. If one of those landlords decides to compete rather than roam, the coverage claim shrinks to whatever the contract allows.

For investors underwriting towers and fiber in South Africa, the lesson cuts against the reflex of buying the physical layer: the newest 5G entrant is a tenant of the mobile operators themselves, a separation of brand from infrastructure that is worth pricing into every underwriting in the market because a disciplined reseller can generate real revenue without a single base station.

Cell C may be the smartest way for a smaller carrier to exist where two operators own the radio layer, but it sharpens the question infrastructure investors will keep asking: if the customer relationship can float above the physical network, what exactly is the premium for owning the network? For now the numbers are on Cell C's side; the next full-year report will show whether the model holds as MTN and Vodacom push their own 5G marketing to the same customers.