AfricaCom: MTN South Africa and Huawei wins ‘sustainability champion’ award

By Stanley Senya

Accra, Nov. 24, GNA – MTN South Africa and Huawei have won the “Sustainability Champion of the Year” award at the 2023 AfricaCom Awards event.

The award was given in recognition of their work in building flexible green site solutions.

AfricaCom is the largest annual event in the communications industry in Africa.

A statement issued in Accra by Huawei said the awards were designed to recognise organisations and institutions that have made innovative and outstanding contributions to the telecom industry in Africa.

It said developed against the background of South Africa’s ongoing power crisis, the solution uses green and intelligent technologies to perform end-to-end site reconstruction and reinforcement with power supply, distribution, load, and intelligent O&M.

The statement said thanks to innovations that include anti-theft reconstruction and smart power consumption, the solution was highly adaptable to power outages and weak power grids and ensures more than 98 per cent energy availability at sites.

It said Huawei’s advanced OWS+NetEco intelligent O&M platform, meanwhile, helps achieve even greater efficiency by using AI technologies for solar, mains, and diesel power supply.

It said the solution had been so successful in South Africa that it would also be rolled out widely in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Kenya to address the challenges of power shortages in these countries.

“Another significant spin-off of this partnership is that it has helped bring MTN much closer to its net-zero goals,” it added

Mr Zoltan Miklos, General Manager of Access and Architecture, MTN South Africa, said, “As a leading operator in South Africa, MTN SA aims to keep the connected connected, enabling all the benefits of a modern connected life to everyone, while harnessing the power of MTN through its leading brand, footprint, connectivity, infrastructure and technology platforms.”

“As the strategic partner of MTN SA, Huawei provides in-depth site insights based on its powerful R&D innovation, product supply capabilities, and professional local service team,” he added

Mr Diego Dong, South Africa Delivery and Service Business, Huawei said “South Africa’s loadshedding crisis already hugely affects people’s activities and mobile network experience,”

“Having a resilient and intelligent network has urgently become the consensus for all operators and customers,” he said.

He said based on the comprehensive power diagnosis and service capability, Huawei and SA MTN were working actively together on Green ICT innovation to build intelligent, green, and simplified sites, which can ensure a highly reliable network and provide the best user experience.

As the largest communications exhibition in Africa, AfricaCom brings together decision makers in the communications field, including government departments, carriers, investors, and industry analysts, to discuss the latest trends in the communications industry.

GNA